Buddy Wars
by KhallieGurl
Summary: An argument between Nico and Pedro evolves into a full-on prank war, which in turn escalates into something a little more serious. Sequel/Companion Piece to "Ambitions".
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello Readers! Thank you for choosing to read "Buddy Wars", and I apologize for the title in advance. I literally spent 2 and a half days trying to think of an appropriate title, and this was the best I could do. It's a play on "Body Wars", if anyBODY (haha, puns) knows what that is. Probably not.

Anyway, I thought I would make a quick note, so I pray that you are still reading. I wrote a previous Rio fic by the name of "Ambitions". This story is basically a sequel, I'm referring to it as a 'companion piece.' And so I recommend that anyone who has not read "Ambitions" and wants to read this story...well, read "Ambitions" first. You don't have to, it's not like reading the 4th Harry Potter before the 3rd (not a good idea, trust me), but some of the characters from "Ambitions" do make a reappearance, and they all talk about what happened in the previous story. So to avoid any confusion, you might want to read the other story first.

Before my disclaimer, I would like to give special thanks to Qille, who I also thank numerous times in my previous story. Because, well, she's awesome. This story would probably not exist if she did not allow me to bounce ideas off of her, and I highly recommend any story she's written, most notably "Bottled Up" and the one she is currently working on, "Seeing Double."

AND NOW THE DISCLAIMER!

Disc: I do not own Rio. Or any of the characters. Except the ones you don't remember from the movie. Those are mine.

* * *

><p><em>"To the right now!" <em>

Javier, Rey, and Abelina moved to their left, realized their mistake, and instead swayed to the right.

"_To the left!" _Nico saw their problem with direction and pointed to their left. They scrambled sideways. _"Take it back now y'all!"_

The three chicks clumsily backtracked, Rey looking behind him to avoid running into anything even though there were no obstacles in the Blue Macaw hollow.

"_One hop this time!"_

Pedro, beat-boxing in the background, paused to make the jumping sound effect in lieu of musical equipment.

"_One hop this time!"_

THUMP.

"_Right foot two stomps!"_

THUMP. THUMP.

"_Left foot two stomps!"_

THUMP. THUMP.

"_Sliiiiide to the left!"_

The sound of little birdie feet sliding across bark filled the hollow.

"_Sliiiiide to the right!"_

Javier slid a little bit too far, and the chicks laughed as he struggled to fix himself in time to slide back to the right.

"_Crisscross!"_

Pedro gave his best attempt at a record scratching sound, which turned out to be eerily accurate. The kids laughed again.

"_Crisscross!"_

Rey struggled so hard to pull off a good crisscross dance move that he fell to the floor.

"_Cha cha, real smooth."_

Nico took a break from shouting dance moves to cha cha himself. He smiled as the kids tried to copy him.

"_Everybody clap yo—"_

"What is going on?"

Nico stopped singing and Pedro immediately stopped his background sound effects. All five birds turned to see two very dismayed Blue Macaws perched in the entrance to the hollow. Their expressions made it difficult to guess if they were truly angry, or just struggling not to laugh.

"I feel like I should be more surprised to find the babysitters doing the Cha Cha Slide with my children when they should be in bed," Blu said drily.

"But I'm not tired," Pedro protested.

"When my children should be in bed."

"Oh."

"It was all his fault!" Nico accused, pointing at Javier. "He was all 'I don't wanna go to bed', and 'It's not bedtime', and 'Mama and Papa do this all the time'…"

Jewel made a strangled grunting sound. Nico and Pedro couldn't tell whether it was a growl or if she was trying to stop herself from laughing. They sincerely hoped it was the latter.

"Kids, go to bed," she managed to croak out. Her children, who couldn't tell her emotions either, waved goodnight to their uncles and fluttered off to the tiny adjoining hollow that served as their bedroom.

When they disappeared, Blu turned to Jewel. "I told you this would happen if we asked them to babysit."

"They're still alive, aren't they?" Pedro broke in.

"Good, you passed the most basic survival portion of the babysitting test."

"Seems like the most important one to me," Nico muttered.

Blu opened his mouth, then closed it again. "It worries me that I'm not at all surprised about you teaching my children the Cha Cha Slide."

"You two _would_ have that memorized," Jewel noted.

"You know it. Your kids got some _moves._"

"Thank you, Pedro," Blu said, pride unwittingly interfering with his sarcastic tone. "I suppose we should also thank you for the favor."

"Seriously, guys, thanks." Jewel gingerly fixed the flower resting in her head feathers. "It's been a while since we got to go on a romantic date."

"No prob," Pedro said.

"Anytime you need us to watch the Blue Crew, we're on it," Nico agreed.

"Good to know." Appreciation was prevalent in Jewel's tone. "But next time…try to get them in bed on time, will you?"

"You're the mama bird."

"Yes I am."

"What are you guys doing the rest of tonight?" Blu asked.

"We're stopping in at The Branch," Nico replied. "Miguel's been begging us to perform 'More' again."

Jewel laughed. "They're still asking you about it? It's been what, two weeks?"

Pedro smiled, crossing his arms. "You know it."

"Good for you, guys," Jewel said amiably. Then she narrowed her eyes. "I see you."

Confused, Nico and Pedro looked behind them, where all three Blue Macaw children were peeking around the corner of their mini hollow. Their little heads disappeared, but their giggling did not.

Blu frowned. "Great. Now they're all wound up."

"It'll be fine," Pedro said dismissively.

"Easy for you to say. You get to leave."

"True."

"Speaking of which, we'd better hurry up and get to The Branch." Nico fluttered towards the hollow exit. "Miguel promised us a surprise."

"Sounds exciting," Jewel said. "Good night, guys!"

"Good night!"

Nico dove out into the night sky, Pedro struggling to keep up with him.

"Okay, I know you missed flying, but that does not mean you have to make up for it by flying everywhere like you're in a race," he cried after the disappearing canary.

Nico did a few loop-de-loops until Pedro caught up. "You're just jealous."

"Nah."

"Yah."

"Nah."

"Yah."

"Ain't!"

"Is!"

"Wouldn't it be are?"

"Probably."

The two birds laughed, now flying side by side.

* * *

><p>Later, they were still laughing. But it was much harder to laugh and stuff your face with chocolate cake at the same time.<p>

Nico swallowed, grabbing a thimble (with plastic wrap inside) full of milk and chugging it before the cake had even slid down his throat. He gulped, slammed the thimble down, and tore off another piece of chocolate cake.

Pedro wasn't even pausing to drink his own thimble of milk, but instead tearing off cake with both hands to increase his eating input.

"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!"

Pedro, mouth completely full of chocolatey goodness, raised both his hands in exhilaration. The crowd watching the eating contest cheered at his excitement. The cardinal chewed and swallowed violently, and then reached for the last three chunks of his half of the cake.

Nico, sensing Pedro closing in for the kill, abandoned his second drink of milk in favor of sticking his face in the still considerable amount of cake he had left. The birds on Nico's side urged him on with yells of "Go for it!" and "Stuff it!"

Pedro somehow managed to down all three chunks of his cake in one bite and raised his arms again, this time in victory. A bell rang, and Miguel the pelican walked over, was going to hold up Pedro's arm but realized it was already up, and announced him as the winner.

About three fourths of the crowd cheered wildly, and one fourth groaned. Shiny human coins changed hands among the varied sounds of triumph and disappointment.

Nico swallowed, drank some more of his milk, and very nearly collapsed on the large paper plate still holding the remainders of his cake. "No….fair," he wheezed at Pedro. "You…_always_…beat me…."

Miguel grunted. "Which is unfortunate. Because my bet was on you…" he stopped complaining as Rafael waded his way to the front of the crowd, holding his hand out expectantly. Miguel reluctantly handed the toucan two copper coins.

"Thank you," Rafael said smugly. "Like I told you earlier—Pedro is far more equipped for a chocolate cake eating contest than our little canary friend."

Nico frowned and Pedro smiled, still trying to chew some remaining cake in his mouth. "You got that right." He swallowed, very nearly gagging himself. "I need some milk. Pronto."

"You have a thimble right there." Miguel pointed to the thimble lined with plastic wrap that Pedro hadn't touched since beginning the contest. Pedro dove for it, gulping like a camel gulps water after three days in the desert.

"But the payout is so much better for the underdog," Miguel continued, whining just a little bit. "I would have gotten, like, 10 peonies if he'd won instead of the two I had to fork over to you."

"I think Blu said they're called pennies. Peonies are flowers."

"Oh. He was right about them being shiny."

"I know. My kids love them. Whenever they use them as frisbees, they throw it and stop completely to watch the light bounce off of them. It's awesome."

"Because it looks cool?"

"Because then no one catches it and they have to waste tons of energy looking for it."

"Ah. Still should've bet on Pedro."

Nico, who had fallen into the chocolate crumbs on the plate long ago, sat up groggily. He pointed at Miguel, then Rafael, alternating his accusatory finger. "I know this is late, but I don't appreciate the whole underdog thing."

"But you are the underdog," Miguel said.

"Don't mean I appreciate it."

"You gotta admit that your size—"

Nico's glare stopped Miguel from continuing. The pelican finally noticed Rafael waving his arms wildly in the background, although by now it was too late for the toucan's attempted intervention.

"I mean…um…"

Pedro nudged Miguel. "Tell him you thought his size would be an advantage—he could burrow into the cake and eat it from the inside out," he whispered.

"I misspoke. I meant to say that I thought your size would be an advantage because you could get farther into the cake and eat it from the inside."

Nico smiled and crossed his arms. "Got that right."

Miguel leaned back towards Pedro, whispering, "Does he know he's insane?"

"He chooses to ignore it."

"Oh."

"Anyway," Rafael said in an attempt to change the conversation, "you guys ready for tomorrow night?"

"What's happening tomorrow?" Nico asked.

Rafael went to the plate and helped Nico up, dusting chocolate crumbs off the little canary. "We're watching _21 _with Richie!"

"Oh yeah!" Pedro exclaimed. "We'll finally get to know what happened to Raoul!"

"What happened to Raoul?" Miguel asked. "He got banished."

"We know that part. But we don't know what happened before that."

"All we did was beat him up—"

Rafael waved wildly, but was once again too late to prevent Miguel from saying something he shouldn't.

"WHAT?" Nico and Pedro burst.

"I mean…um…wait, Raf, what else was I supposed to say?"

"That's all you did?" Nico yelled. "How anticlimactic is that?"

"The dude tried to kill us!" Pedro joined in.

"And he hired a cat! A CAT!"

"That's seriously messed up."

"Guys, what else did you want us to—"

Rafael snickered as Miguel tried to explain.

"Well, nothing, but now you ruined the ending!" Nico said, clearly exasperated—his bottle cap rested sideways on his head and he was doing nothing to fix it.

Rafael continued snickering. "You guys were ticked that I wouldn't tell you and you had to wait, and now you're mad at Miguel for 'ruining the surprise'?"

"Makes perfect sense to me," Pedro pouted, arms crossed.

"Well the bouncers dealt with it very well," Miguel said. "So rest assured that he won't be coming back here anytime soon."

"We ain't afraid," Pedro said defiantly. "Just mad that you ruined the ending."

"There is no way you can be angry with me. I gave you chocolate cake."

"Yeah, some surprise that was," Nico muttered. "Then you talked us into an eating contest and now I feel like I might die from overeating." He put a hand over his stomach and whimpered for extra effect.

"Yeah, isn't gluten one of the seven deadly sins?"

"It's gluttony, Pedro."

"Oh. Well still." The cardinal pointed at Miguel. "Now if we die and go to the bad place, it's all your fault."

Miguel clearly had no idea how to fix this conversation. "Uh-huh. I'm going home. I'll see you guys in a few nights when you perform your Branch song again."

"We might change our minds." Pedro looked snootily at his fingernails, or where his fingernails would be if they weren't feathers.

"Yeah, okay," Miguel muttered. "Good night." The pelican took off, following the vacating crowd. Nico and Pedro's cake eating contest had been the last event of the evening.

Rafael turned to Nico and Pedro, who were shakily experimenting with motion to see if they could handle it just yet. "Come by my hollow tomorrow night around seven," he said. "Then we'll head off to Richie's."

"Your hollow?" Pedro's voice was filled with dread.

"Why can't you come by our hollow?" Nico asked.

"I promised Eva I'd be there for dinner tomorrow. We can leave as soon as I'm done."

"But—"

"Oh, come on, guys, you can just wait outside. My kids will be eating."

"Including Juan?" Pedro absently rubbed his right wing, which until recently had been missing a feather.

"Including Juan."

"You gotta be ready to go soon as we get there," Nico said strictly.

"I will be."

"Okay. Then we'll see you tomorrow night."

"Awright," Rafael said, preparing to take off. "Have fun flying, Nico!" He hadn't had to fly Nico places for about a week now, but he found the canary's sudden vigor for flying absolutely hilarious.

"Why does he think that's so funny?" Nico asked. "I'd like to see him go for a week without flying."

"Race you home!" Pedro yelled from the sky, already a disappearing speck.

Nico realized Pedro had taken off while he mused to himself, and adjusted his bottle cap accordingly for flight. "Cheaters never win!"

"Yes they do! It's why they cheat!"

Nico propelled himself off the ground, channeling every bit of energy pent up in his little body to beat Pedro home.

* * *

><p>"It's…this one!" Rafael cried, coming in for a landing atop the roof of a store bearing the sign <em>A Loja de Muitos Filmes. <em>He leaned over the edge, peering into the window of the room above the ground level store, and knocked on it with his beak.

The creak of the window opening was accompanied by a nasally voice. "Hey Rafael!"

"Hey Richie!" Rafael gestured to Nico and Pedro to follow him, flying off the roof and in through the window. "What's up, man?"

"Nothing much!" The vivid yellow parakeet closed the window behind his three guests. "Hey Nico, Pedro, how you doing?"

"Good, man," Nico said genially. "Thanks for inviting us to your sweet pad."

"This? Ah, it's nothing. Just an empty apartment stocked with food. And a Panasonic TC-PVT30, complete with a Logitech Z-5500 sound system."

"What?"

"It's an HD TV."

"Oh."

"You got the movie?" Rafael asked Richie.

"Duh. I don't have an entire ground floor of movies for nothing." Richie pointed to the left, where the case for _21 _lay on a large L-shaped couch resting opposite a gigantic television. DVD cases, candy wrappers, empty bags of popcorn, and video game controllers surrounded the TV in a heap of bachelor pad themed promise.

"How long has your owner been gone?" Pedro asked, still scanning the piles of trash as if expecting the Holy Grail to appear out of nowhere.

"An hour."

"_Nice."_

"Anyway, help yourselves to some grub," Richie said, this time pointing to the right into a tiny kitchenette. More bags of popcorn, these ones full, littered the countertops, along with soda cans and various frozen dinners. "I'll pop in the movie."

With that, Richie fluttered over into the living room, kicking aside trash in search of the remote. Nico, Pedro, and Rafael hopped into the kitchen, eagerly surveying their dinner options.

"You have spaghetti?" Nico cried, nearly falling over a box bearing a bright picture of noodles bathed in tomato sauce.

"And macaroni and cheese?" Pedro shared his friend's exaltation as he discovered his own favorite pasta.

"I'm lucky enough to have an owner that never cooks," Richie said. "And I mean _never._"

Rafael, who had already eaten, helped himself to a large sugar cookie from a glass jar at the end of the countertop. "Ah, the bachelor life."

"Oh, Eduardo's a bachelor all right."

"Pedro, split a Cherry Coke with me," Nico said, having miraculously opened the fridge and discovered the artificially flavored wonders that awaited him there.

"No way, I want a regular." Pedro came to flutter behind his friend.

"A regular? Over cherry?"

"Cherry's gross."

"Nah, it ain't."

"Besides, I want my own."

"There is no way you can drink an entire soda on your own."

"Yeah I can. They're only the half-size ones."

"You never finish half anyway!"

"I'll take that as a challenge."

"You are _on_."

Pedro smirked and knocked two Cokes onto the floor, one regular and one cherry. Nico, channeling all his weight and force, managed to push the refrigerator door closed before joining Pedro in rolling the sodas into the living room.

"Check me out, bro!" Pedro hopped on top of his, balancing as if he were on a rolling log.

"That's nothin'!" Nico jumped on his own Coke, trying to roll as effectively as Pedro. He gained speed quickly, coming up fast behind his friend.

"Dude, slow down—"

"I can't!"

Nico crashed into Pedro's can. The impact jarred the canary off and into the cardinal. Both birds flipped into the air, miraculously staying aloft long enough for the soda cans to roll away underneath them, leaving a bare hardwood floor for them to land on.

Pedro hit the floor first, Nico following closely. He landed on Pedro's rotund belly and bounced off, laughing even as his head struck the wooden floor.

"We have to do that again!"

Pedro struggled to break coherent words through his laughter. "We—haha, we gotta!"

Richie was peering over the edge of the sofa at the spectacle, head resting on his arms. "That was like straight up Donkey Kong!"

Nico and Pedro looked at Richie with baffled expressions, laughter a little less intense.

"You know…like…the barrels…you have to jump over them…"

Nico and Pedro blinked, laughter completely surrendering to puzzlement.

"Oh, come on, you guys don't know Donkey Kong?"

They shook their heads. Rafael, still snacking on sugar cookies in the kitchen, also shook his head.

Richie rolled his eyes. "Unbelievable. But hey, I found the remote." He brandished the gray clicker like he had found Excalibur itself. "What do you say we start the flick?"

Pedro jumped up, pushing Nico back onto the floor before the canary could fully stand.

"Dude, no fair!"

"I want the corner seat," Pedro called, hauling his soda up onto the coffee table and settling into the bend of the couch.

"You're not the only one," Nico replied in a mock competitive tone. He turned to Rafael. "Hey Ralfy, help me out."

Rafael picked up Nico's half-size soda and hurled it at Pedro. Pedro ducked, although the can had been aimed to hit the couch well above the cardinal's head.

"I don't respond to no threats!"

Nico fluttered to Pedro's side, where his Cherry Coke had landed. He kicked aside the soda, making room to sit beside his best friend. "Just shut up so Richie can start the movie."

"Finally," the parakeet said, laughing, from the other side of the room. He dimmed down the lights, shrouding the birds in perfect film viewing darkness.

"This is nice." Rafael, sitting on the other side of Nico's soda, sounded genuinely impressed.

"Thanks, Raf." Richie plopped down next to Rafael, flipping through the previews. When he got to the main menu, Nico and Pedro excitedly opened their sodas.

The soda practically exploded from the cans, dousing both birds in sticky, bubbly Coke. Rafael and Richie burst out laughing at Nico and Pedro's taken aback expressions.

"Did you really expect that not to happen after rolling them across the floor?" Rafael asked.

"We probably should have thought of that," Nico mused.

Richie threw a roll of paper towels at them. "Don't worry about the mess. Eduardo's couch has so many stains he won't notice a couple more."

Nico and Pedro each tore off a paper towel, scrubbing themselves relatively dry.

"Gotta admit, that was kind of cool. Like when you hold a bomb too long in minigames."

Richie was once again met by blank stares.

"Mario Party? Anyone?"

Nico and Pedro blinked from behind their paper towels. Rafael shook his head again.

"What is with you people? And you haven't seen _21_…" The parakeet shook his head in disappointment. "Well, sit back and enjoy. 'Cuz it's starting now."

* * *

><p>Nico dropped his piece of popcorn as Cole Williams landed another punch across gambler Ben Campbell's face. This time, the Security Chief wore rings for maximum punching effect.<p>

Pedro looked a little less alarmed, but still mildly disoriented. "_That's _what they did to Raoul?"

"Well, they didn't wear rings, but you get the picture," Rafael said. He and Richie continued shoveling in popcorn, almost completely unfazed by the violent action taking place on screen.

"Seems like kind of a serious reaction," Nico observed, shakily retrieving his popcorn and sucking some more soda with the straw Richie had provided. "All he's doing is using math to his advantage."

"It's making the casino lose money."

"That's like saying reading a lot makes the library go out of business."

"Hey, there's money involved. Drastic measures had to be taken. And you know what Raoul did. So…this is what happened."

Nico stared at the screen, where the casino Security Chief continued to whale on the main character, haplessly tied to a chair. Nico didn't have a weak constitution, nor was the scene really terribly violent, but something about it was throwing him off.

The feeling passed along with the scene. The credits rolled and Richie turned the lights back on."What you guys think?"

"I liked it," Nico piped.

"Eh, it was okay," Pedro said. "Needed some more action."

"And Ben Campbell being punched in the face wasn't enough for you?"

"It was like one scene!"

"True, but there's all that other heist escape stuff at the end."

"I prefer James Bond's take on casinos."

Richie laughed. "Do you guys want some cookies? I'm going to grab some from the kitchen."

"Stop offering," Rafael said. "You're making me fat."

Nico dipped his finger in the spaghetti sauce remaining from the TV dinner he'd shared with Rafael, whose stomach had growled about an hour into the movie. "I'm good for now."

"I'll take some cookies," Pedro said. His macaroni dinner had been licked clean.

Richie returned a moment later, bearing a bag of Chips Ahoy!, a box of Sour Patch Kids, and a box of Fruit by the Foot all expertly arranged in his claws. "I just grabbed a whole bunch of stuff."

Pedro's eyes strongly resembled starlit constellations. "Fruit by the Foot? This Eduardo guy is _awesome._"

"Yeah. He eats this stuff like they're power-ups from Hyrule Temple."

For the third time that night, all three of Richie's guests stared blankly at the yellow parakeet.

"You know, like when the food falls from the sky in Super Smash Bros?"

As usual, he was met with silence.

"Okay okay okay, you've _never played Super Smash Bros_?"

Rafael, Nico, and Pedro shook their heads in unison.

"We have to fix this." Richie dropped the snacks and flew to his television. He opened the bottom cabinet of the TV case, revealing at least four shiny gaming systems. He messed with the wires for a small white one, then turned things on and changed some channels.

"We'll have to use this one, the GameCube and the N64 are both in storage. This also means we'll have to play Melee, but that's the best one anyway."

The word "Wii" flashed across the screen, and Richie quickly started plugging in controllers. Before they knew it, Rafael, Nico, and Pedro each had a black video game controller in front of them.

"Luckily, Eduardo kept the GameCube controllers up here. He plays this sometimes. And Animal Crossing. But I don't like that game. The bird characters are a little offensive."

Richie suddenly realized that his guests had no idea what he was talking about. "Oh, sorry. Okay, this game is called Super Smash Bros for a reason," he began explaining as the main screen loaded. "Basically, you pick a character, and then whale on each other. Go ahead, pick someone."

Each bird stared blankly at his controller. Pedro poked the joystick, causing one of the gloved hands on screen to move. "Did I do that?"

"There you go! Just move the gray thing to move around. And then press the big green 'A' button to select a character."

"Oo, this guy's got a sword," Pedro said, choosing a blond guy wearing green.

"That's Link. He's also got arrows."

"Cool."

"Who's this dude?" Nico asked, hovering over a small yellow thing with brown stripes. "I like his coloring."

"That's Pikachu."

"Awright, I'ma be him."

"Rafael?" Richie turned expectantly to the toucan, fiddling with his joystick in indecision over two characters.

"I can't decide between the big green monster, or the giant monkey."

"You mean Bowser and Donkey Kong? Oh, I'd go with Donkey Kong first. Bowser takes some getting used to."

"If you say so."

Richie smiled, clearly thrilled at the promise of bringing new blood into the world of Super Smash Bros. He moved his icon to a small pink thing that looked a little like a balloon. "I'll be Kirby."

With that, he pressed the 'Start' button. "We're in for a long night."

* * *

><p>And so it begins.<p>

If you liked it, review it, if you didn't, still review. I'd like to know negative things too, because how else will I know what to fix?

Seriously, I hope you like it so far! And seriously...review. :)


	2. Chapter 2

Quick disclaimer: There is an excerpt of "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World in this chapter, and I do not own the song.

That is all. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>A sliver of sunlight broke through the curtains' valiant attempt to barricade the window, effectively shattering the darkness enveloping the disheveled apartment above <em>A Loja de Muitos Filmes.<em>

The intrusive beam played across the surface of the couch, as if trying purposely to find something living to waken. It found a target in the sleeping face of a red-chested cardinal. His wing moved in a lazy, half-conscious attempt to bat away the annoying light, but upon realizing it was not an insect that could be shooed away, the cardinal turned to rest on his side.

Unfortunately for him, he turned to his right, where the couch ceased to exist and was replaced by empty air leading straight to the floor.

Pedro plummeted 12 inches to the ground, just missing the carpet beneath the coffee table and instead smacking himself awake on the hardwood floor. His yelp of pain, partly because of his very sudden transgression from unconscious to conscious, was lost beneath the sound of impact.

The aggravated cardinal sat up, rubbing his neck and muttering complaints. He stretched and looked to his left, expecting to see either Nico's still sleeping form or Nico's empty bed of leaves.

He saw only a human apartment chock full of wires, controllers, and candy wrappers.

At first, concern consumed Pedro like a very violent tidal wave, if only because Nico or an empty hollow was the first thing he saw every day. The last time Pedro had been greeted with an unfamiliar morning image, it was because he had collapsed drunk in a bush by the side of the road after being chased by a maniacal cat.

It only took a second for Pedro to realize a similar situation was not happening, and to remember exactly what took place the night before. He looked above him, where a large black wing dangled off the edge of the sofa. Smiling, he fluttered back up to the couch, where Rafael lay on his stomach breathing deeply and regularly.

Apparently, Pedro's fall had woken only Pedro himself. Richie slept soundly in a large black armchair, footrest extended even though the parakeet had no use for it. And Nico was sprawled on a couch pillow resting on the floor, bottle cap completely obscuring his face and muffling the sounds of his breathing.

Pedro flew to his best friend first, gently shaking his sleeping form. "Nico! Nico!"

Nico, a light sleeper, gave a start. "I want to buy a Star for 20 coins…"

"What?"

"But don't slip on the banana peel."

"What are you talking about?"

"No! Don't throw the grenade! I haven't reloaded yet!"

Although part of him wanted to continue listening to Nico's dreamlike ramblings, Pedro shook his friend harder. "Wake up, man!"

"I can't reload unless you get all the rings, Sonic!"

Pedro lifted the bottle cap off of Nico's face, fanning him furiously. The canary mumbled something about ghosts and turned away from the offensive breeze. Forced to resort to physical violence, Pedro whacked Nico on the back of the head.

Nico's wings instinctively went to the injured area as he sat up and cried aloud.

"OW…"

"Are you awake now?"

"Well I guess. Dude, I let you sleep in all the time, why can't you do the same for me?"

"Because we ain't home."

Pedro's words made Nico finally take in his surroundings. "How long were we _here _last night?"

"Apparently the whole night."

"Doesn't surprise me."

"I got Ralfy. You get Richie."

Both birds flew to their respective targets. Nico managed to nudge Richie awake, but Pedro chose to push Rafael over the edge of the couch.

"OW!"

"I got similar treatment, Raf," Nico said, looking down at the very aggravated toucan from Richie's armchair. Richie rubbed his eyes, shooting Nico an extremely thankful glance.

"You up, Ralfy?" Pedro asked unnecessarily, leaning over the edge of the couch.

"Yes, Pedro," Rafael said through gritted teeth. "Thank you so much for pushing me off the couch."

"Same way I woke up."

"Were you pushed?"

"No."

"And there we go."

Rafael saw Richie and Nico from across the room, froze, and suddenly seemed to realize where he was.

"I was here _all night_?"

"Apparently so," Richie said. "You guys want some breakfast?"

Nico and Pedro piped hearty affirmatives, but Rafael looked like he had just been visited by Death itself.

"Guys, I have to get home. Eva is going to _kill _me."

Nico and Pedro's eyes, large and twinkling with the promise of breakfast, shrunk to Rafael's size.

"Aw man, I do _not _envy you," Pedro said.

Rafael turned to Richie. "Thanks for everything last night. But I have to get home, like, _now._"

Richie, still a little groggy, looked confused. "Why?"

"I have a wife and kids! Mostly, a wife!"

Realization dawned like the sun on the yellow parakeet's face. "Oh. Right. Eva."

"Okay okay okay, here's the plan," Rafael said quickly, pacing the floor in frustrated circles. "Nico, Pedro, we were on our way home last night when…um…the lock on the Adoption Center for Cats broke and we had to hide in a tree!"

"Déjà vu", Pedro muttered.

"Dude, she won't buy that. We could just fly over the cats. No way they could follow us into the jungle," Nico pointed out.

"Fine, fine, then…we were captured by bird smugglers? No, no, that actually happened and she barely believed me then either…"

"Plus Blu and Jewel would be on your case, and they'd probably report your fake smugglers to Linda and Tulio," Nico said, ever the voice of reason and logic.

"You're right…um…"

Richie raised his hand.

"Yes, Richie?"

He slowly lowered it. "Oh. Sorry. Don't know why I did that. Why don't you tell her Nico and Pedro needed your help getting home, and you spent the night in their hollow because you didn't want to leave them alone?"

"Hey!" Nico and Pedro chorused in offense.

"Wait a minute…that might actually work…"

"That's embarrassing," Pedro muttered.

"You have a lot of experience with embarrassment anyway."

"I don't need _more_."

"And Raf, dude, she'll hate us even more if you tell her that," Nico whined.

"She doesn't hate you."

"She doesn't like us."

"But she doesn't _hate _you."

"She already thinks of us as 'immature glory-seeking wannabes'", Nico said, imitating Eva's high-pitched and annoying voice.

"She married the King of Carnevale. She can't expect my friends to be anything but immature glory-seeking wannabes."

"Hey!"

"Relax, relax, I'll just tell her you guys didn't feel good after something you ate and I stayed with you to make sure you were okay. Everything works out. All right?"

"Guess so."

"I can go along with that."

"I'll back up the story."

Rafael flashed a thumbs-up at his friends' chorused agreement. "Great! I'm gonna try to get back later, I think this story will actually work. I'll see you guys tonight. I'm gonna survive!" With that last gleeful proclamation, Rafael soared through the curtains and out the window.

Richie chuckled. "You guys still want breakfast?" He turned to talk to the two birds, but the question needn't have been asked. Nico and Pedro were already in the kitchen.

"Guess so." Richie joined them, trying to think of what options lay in the deep recesses of the freezer. He was too late once again, because Pedro was already pulling out a box of Eggo Waffles.

"Guess we're having Eggos. You guys want some coffee?"

"You have _coffee_?" Nico looked like Richie had just said he had the one ring to rule them all.

"Yep." Richie fluttered to the coffee maker, pressing buttons and pulling a box of ground coffee from the shadows of the counter. "You like coffee?"

"He stalks this one coffee shop near The Branch," Pedro said. "Always hoping the one barista will leave on break so he can fly into the back and make himself a cup."

"Sometimes it works."

"Yeah. Sometimes."

"Is that how you guys get food?" Richie asked.

They both shrugged. "The human food. Otherwise, we just eat seeds and berries and stuff from the forest," Nico explained.

"That sounds awful."

"It's not so bad."

"So what exactly is this Branch I keep hearing about?" Richie asked, coffee machine humming away in the background.

"Only the coolest place in Rio de Janeiro," Pedro said.

"Birds go to dance and sing and have a good time," Nico piped in.

"Rafael told me you were the headliners."

"Kinda," Nico said modestly. "We're a popular act."

"So popular other birds get jealous?"

"Huh?"

"Rafael told me a little bit about Raoul. But not much."

"Now _that _is a story to tell," Pedro said smugly.

"We've got time."

And with that prompt, Pedro launched into a highly exaggerated and only semi-truthful version of what had happened two weeks ago.

* * *

><p>An hour later, Nico was frantically hopping between colored buttons on the fake frets of a fake guitar while Pedro furiously moved the plastic bar that served as the fake guitar strings.<p>

_It just takes some time, little girl in the middle of the ride,_

_ Everything, everything will be just fine, _

_ Everything, everything will be all right!_

Nico slammed his foot down on the last button and promptly collapsed off the fret. "I thought you said that song was easy?" he panted, lying on the ground with his sore feet in the air.

"I said it wasn't impossible," Richie corrected. "You guys did pretty well, though. 85% isn't bad."

Pedro lowered his wing so that Nico could high-five it from his current position. "We rocked Jimmy Eat World."

"That's the band. The song was called The Middle," Richie said.

"Oh. We still rocked it."

"That you did."

"What other games you got?" Nico asked, turning onto his stomach.

"Okay, last night we got to Mario Party, Mario Kart, Sonic the Hedgehog, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and, of course, Super Smash Bros," Richie said, counting last night's exploits on his fingers. "That basically covers Nintendo. Well, we can never _really _cover Nintendo, but Sonic and Zombies definitely cover Sega."

"What was this?"

"Guitar Hero. And you played Mario Baseball, Mario Soccer, Mario Tennis…"

"Why is a farmer such a popular video game character?" Pedro asked, staring at the box for Mario Party 8.

"He's a plumber, first of all. And no one really knows."

"A plumber? With a princess?"

"He's a really good plumber."

"And a racecar driver. And an athlete. And a board game contestant, apparently," Nico remarked, surveying all the Mario themed options fanned out on the floor. "Man, can you believe we never played these?"

"I don't know how we survived."

"It was a dark time until we came here." Nico abandoned the video games lying on the floor to fly back to the kitchen, where a steaming mug patiently awaited him on the counter. He appreciatively sniffed the waves of visible aroma rising from the cup, then dunked his head in.

Pedro smirked. He loved seeing his friend try to sip coffee from a cup at least three times bigger than he was. He turned to Richie. "Wait for it. Three…two…one…"

The moment Pedro counted down to one, Nico tried to dive so far into the coffee cup that his feet left the solid counter. A small plop broke his intense slurping noises.

"Aw, man!" Nico raised his head from the sea of coffee, holding his now dripping bottle cap. "My bottle cap fell in."

Richie laughed. "Why didn't you take it off before trying to drink?"

"Didn't even think of it."

"I did," Pedro whispered to Richie. The parakeet laughed again.

"What are you guys laughing about?"

"Our secret plot to destroy you."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"You shouldn't."

Nico shook his bottle cap through the air, trying very hard to make the coffee drip off. "You will be foiled."

"Nah."

"Fine, then show me your stuff in Super Smash Bros."

"Challenge accepted."

Richie swapped Guitar Hero for Super Smash Bros, re-plugging in the controllers. "Could one of you grab me a Coke?" he asked, brow furrowed at the tangle of cords barely connecting the controller to the Wii. "I'm going to try to fix this."

Pedro fluttered to the fridge, opened it with Nico's help, and knocked over three Cokes, one cherry flavored for Nico. They rejoined a very frustrated Richie in the living room.

"I am going to destroy you as Fox," Pedro said, popping open his Coke and hitting Nico on the arm.

"I was gonna be Fox!" Nico protested.

"Too bad. I've already called him."

"No you haven't."

"I call Fox."

"DAH! No fair!"

"That was totally fair."

Richie let out a quick sound of triumph as the wires for two controllers parted. "You guys know you can both be Fox, right? You'll just be different colors."

"We can't _both _be Fox," Nico gasped, as if Richie had suggested they cover themselves in catnip and parade in front of the pet store. "It would be madness!"

"Only one can be Fox," Pedro agreed. "And I called it."

"If you say so," Richie said, plugging in controllers and setting up the game while Pedro and Nico squabbled in the background.

"You didn't call it. You just assumed I'd be okay with you being Fox."

"And then I called it!"

"Not fair!"

"You can be Jigglypuff."

"Jigglypuff is _awful._"

"Exactly."

"I'm going to kill you."

"Not if I'm Fox."

"Guys, guys, guys," Richie broke in, laughing. "Decide, because the game is ready."

Pedro, gloating, moved his icon to Fox. Nico glowered and chose Captain Falcon.

"You will regret this."

* * *

><p>Pedro cheered again as Captain Falcon flew off the giant floating Squirtle, Fox standing proudly on the stage beneath the word "Time." Nico threw himself to the floor, his shouts of denial muffled by efforts to asphyxiate himself.<p>

"HA! Some sudden death that was!"

"Nononononononononono…"

Richie, although not quite as dramatic as Nico, was also sullen. "You have to stop beating us."

"Nah," Pedro said nonchalantly, at this point in his victory dance twirling in circles and brandishing the victory sign with both hands. "You're just jealous."

"It took me two years to get to my current skill level. It took you two days."

"Like I said. Jealous." Pedro leaned down next to Nico's limp form on the ground. "I told you I would destroy you."

Nico mumbled an unintelligible answer.

"I knew you would say that." The cardinal, close to bursting with pride and a little something else, flew over to the window. "Be right back. I have some business to take care of." He disappeared into the flower bed.

"He did down half his coke in, like, three minutes," Richie mused.

Nico popped up. A smirk crossed his face. He grabbed his still 75% full Cherry Coke, trying desperately to lift it.

"What are you doing?"

"Help me lift this and you'll see."

Richie obeyed, lifting the back end of the soda can so the brunt weight of the middle rested on Nico's outstretched arms.

"Now help me pour it in his Coke can."

"But he hates Cherry Coke."

"That's the point!"

Richie smiled as he understood Nico's subtle form of revenge. Nico, although wavering a little, managed to keep the can upright and aimed into Pedro's so Richie could successfully pour some of Nico's soda into it.

"Not too much," Nico warned. "He'll notice the weight difference."

Richie stopped pouring, setting the can down next to Nico just as Pedro flew in from outside.

"Awright, you guys ready for another round?" he asked, landing and striking a ninja pose as if he was the one physically fighting in the video game.

"Fine, but let me change my character. Captain Falcon isn't doing it for me," Nico grimaced, happy expression from a moment earlier completely gone.

Pedro waited patiently as Nico and Richie chose characters, knowing that if he changed and willingly gave up Fox, Nico would pounce. His patience ran out very quickly as Nico fiddled between Bowser and Pikachu. "Hurry uuuuuuuup."

"I can't decide, man."

"Depends on if you want to be a little guy or a big guy."

Nico frowned. "Big guy."

"The littler characters aren't very good. Good choice."

Nico's frown intensified. "The little guys are just as good as the big guys."

"Nah."

Nico's expression darkened along with his frown. He violently moved his joystick back to Pikachu. "Little can be good, too."

Pedro, his ego deflating a tad as the seconds wore on, suddenly realized what he had been saying. "Oh, right. Course they can."

Although Nico seemed to be placated by Pedro's admission, his expression remained a little peeved. Pedro shot him an apologetic look and took a sip of his Coke.

He instantly started choking and tried to spit it back out.

Pedro's loud gagging as he tried desperately to get the cherry taste out of his mouth was equaled only by Nico and Richie's laughter. The intensity of the laughter forced both yellow birds to double over completely, gasping for air even as their breath left them in undisguised chuckles.

Pedro narrowed his eyes at the two laughing birds, tongue hanging out of his mouth in hopes that the air would decontaminate the cherry flavor. Accusations begged to fly from his mouth, but the prank had been a good one, not only peeving Pedro but also rendering him incapable of immediate verbal retaliation. He would have to be content with glaring.

Nico's laughter finally waded, and he stopped hitting the floor in uncontrollable giddiness. "How's Fox now?"

"Yoo e'en mo' dem yen yoo wa be'ore."

"What?"

Pedro retracted his tongue, wincing as he tasted remnants of artificial cherry. "You're more dead than you were before."

"We'll see about that." Nico tapped his controller, eyebrows raised in a challenge.

"Fine."

They played another round. Pedro won. Nico, back to sulking, flew to the kitchen, where Richie had kept a steady stream of coffee pouring from the coffeemaker all day for the slightly addicted canary. Nico stuck his head in the mug and drank deeply, nursing his wounded pride with the robust beverage.

Pedro smirked and raised a finger to his beak, motioning Richie to keep quiet. He fluttered silently over to Nico, landed behind him, and counted down from three using his fingers. When he reached one, Nico lifted himself for better access to his drink, and Pedro pushed his feet until the entire canary toppled into the mug.

"HOT! HOT! HOT!"

Pedro and Richie laughed at Nico's frantic shrieks just as hard as Nico and Richie had laughed five minutes earlier. Nico grasped onto the edge of the mug, pulled himself up while holding his bottle cap, and flipped over onto the counter next to an almost tearful and incapacitated Pedro.

Nico's eyes never left Pedro's laughing face as he shook off his bottle cap and wrung out his wings.

"If it's a prank war you want, it's a prank war you'll get."

* * *

><p>Read and Review, please! (If you've gotten this far you've already read it, so you're halfway there.)<p>

And now for a quick request: If anyone has any good ideas for pranks, and is okay with sharing them, I would love to hear them! Seriously. I have a limited number of ideas written on my notepad. And they're not very good ones. Bird-size pranks are very hard to come by. And if I end up using an idea, I will give credit where credit is due.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

A quick note to you Readers: this was the most difficult chapter I've ever had to write for anything ever. And this is including that one super-long chapter of "Ambitions" where everyone JUST misses each other. So...don't judge too harshly.

To everyone who submitted prank ideas, thank you very much! I didn't end up using any of them (sorry...) because inspiration (or what passes for such) struck me very super suddenly. But I will be reserving the ideas, because I rather liked all of them, and I might use them later. (Don't worry, I will still give credit where credit is due.) However, for this chapter, I'm all pranked out, it turned out MUCH longer than I'd planned, and I actually had to cut it down.

Anyway...I'm done! Enjoy! I hope you all laugh!

* * *

><p>Rafael flew past the setting sun, excitement fueling every pump of his wings. The sky glowed orange as day transitioned into night, and despite the glare making it difficult for Rafael to locate Richie's store, the toucan smiled. Sunset was his favorite time of day.<p>

Rafael finally spotted the sign bearing the name of the video store. He landed on the ledge and prepared to kick open the window in a dramatic announcement of his return, but before his leg could make contact with the window pane, a spoon hit it from the other side.

The sudden strike halted Rafael in his tracks, upsetting his balance. He almost fell off the ledge before remembering that he was a bird and could therefore fly. Hovering in place, he cocked his head and watched the spoon slowly slide down the window, leaving behind some sort of sticky substance. Was he in the right place?

"MISSED ME!"

"STOP MOVING!"

Oh yeah. He was in the right place.

Rafael gingerly pushed open the window, peeking his head in slowly so the next projectile didn't land on his face. The smell of peanuts wafted through the apartment.

Pedro, covered in the same sticky substance smearing the window, was glaring into the kitchen. Nico nonchalantly leaned against a mug, the cocky angle at which his bottle cap was tipped matching the cocky grin on his face.

"I'm just too fast for you," he said haughtily.

"You sneaky little—"

"Pedro, are you covered in..._peanut butter_?" Rafael asked.

"Ralfy!"

"You're back!"

Pedro and Nico waved, forgetting their all-important stare-down.

"How'd Eva take the news?" Nico asked.

"She was pret-ty angry with me this morning, but my natural charm never ceases to work wonders," Rafael said, slicking back his head feathers. "It also helped that she thinks you two are completely incapable of taking care of yourselves."

"Great," Pedro muttered.

"Dude, that's not cool."

"Got me back here, didn't it?"

"Touché."

"Now will you tell me why there's a peanut-butter covered spoon sticking to the window and a peanut-butter covered Pedro glaring at Nico? And Nico, why are your feathers browner than usual?"

Nico smiled. "Because Pedro can't accept defeat."

"Defeat? I pushed you into the coffee."

"Yeah, and then I got you to come to the fridge and assaulted you with my peanut-butter sword."

"And I would've hit you if you hadn't flown away from the window."

"Yeah. _Would _have."

"What?" Rafael still looked baffled.

"Okay, Pedro was being a jerk—"

"No I wasn't, Ralfy! He's just jealous I beat him in Super Smash Bros all the time!"

"He was being a jerk, and so I poured Cherry Coke into his regular Coke—"

Rafael snickered before Nico could finish his explanation. Pedro frowned.

"Wasn't funny. So I pushed him into his mug of coffee—"

Rafael's snicker turned into a full-on snort.

"Which is why my feathers are kinda brown, 'cause they dried that way, and then I told Pedro to help me get more sodas from the bottom of the fridge, and I'd made this awesome peanut-butter sword with a spoon—"

Rafael struggled to keep his snort from erupting into laughter.

"And then I disarmed Nico and tried to throw the spoon at him but he _moved_—"

"You say that like I'm supposed to stay still when someone is aiming a spoon at me."

"You are!"

Rafael could not hold his laughter in any longer. Nico and Pedro narrowed their eyes in offense.

"Why do people laugh at us, Pedro?"

"I dunno. We say such serious things."

"Even Richie was laughing at us."

Rafael took a deep breath to break his laughter. "Where is Richie?"

"In his video store. He's finding another movie for us to watch," Nico explained, fluttering over to Pedro with a damp paper towel. "Here. Try this."

Pedro practically ripped the towel from Nico's hands. Nico snickered at his friend's angry expression, which quickly disappeared beneath the towel.

The door suddenly creaked open and Richie re-entered, holding three DVD's. "Raf, you're back!'

"You know it."

The parakeet eyed Pedro furiously scrubbing himself with the towel. "Have they filled you in?"

"You know it."

"Now Pedro smells like peanut butter."

"You know it."

"What movies did you bring?" Nico asked, trying to peer beneath Richie's arm to see the covers.

"All right, here are our choices," Richie said proudly, lifting the first DVD. "_Ice Age_, the story of three ancient-awesome-but-now-extinct creatures trying to save a human baby."

"Eh."

"Second choice," Richie announced before throwing _Ice Age _to the side, "_The Social Network, _the semi-true tale of Facebook's founder."

"Facebook?" Pedro asked.

"Oh, right, you don't know what that is…"

"What's the third choice?"

Richie smiled as he held up a blue cover displaying a gigantic shark waiting, mouth open, beneath the figure of a swimming woman. "A shark who gets really really hungry. _Jaws_."

"Yes, yes, yes, and yes!" Pedro yelled. "Look at the teeth on that thing!"

"Does it eat a lot of people?" Nico asked a little nervously.

"Enough."

"I don't know what that means."

"Let's pop it in and see," Rafael said, a little less excited than Pedro but still obviously enthralled.

"Got it," Richie said. Abandoning the other two films, he flew over to the TV, fiddled with the remotes, and slipped in the DVD. All four birds settled into their exact spots from the night before and Richie dimmed the lights.

By the end of the first scene, Nico was cowering behind Rafael. Pedro would have pointed and laughed, but his eyes would not waver from the TV screen lest he miss the shark's appearance.

* * *

><p>"AAAAAAAAH!"<p>

Nico bolted upright, heart suddenly pounding with the intensity of a firefly trying to escape its jar. The leaves on the edge of his bed scattered at the abrupt movement, floating around the hollow still reverberating with the sound of Pedro's scream. Passing on any opportunity to calm himself down, he immediately looked over at his friend.

The cardinal was also sitting upright, breathing fast and shallow. He clutched his leg desperately, as if something was trying to rip it off.

"SHARK TRIED TO GRAB MY LEG! SHARK TRIED TO GRAB MY LEG!"

"Calm down!"

"THE SHARK TRIED TO GRAB MY LEG, NICO!"

"It was just a dream!"

"IT TRIED TO EAT ME!"

Nico rolled his eyes. "And you called _me _a baby."

Pedro huffed. "You hid behind Rafael for the entire movie."

"Nuh-UH."

"And you hung onto Rafael for almost the entire flight home."

"Nuh-UH!"

"Yes you did!"

"I'm not the one who had a _nightmare_ about it."

Pedro huffed again, a little more offensively this time. "How would you like a gigantic shark tearing through the waves after you and RIPPING YOUR LEG OFF?"

"You know that sharks aren't that huge, right?"

"Wha? Of course they are!"

"Nope. That was a movie. No way any real shark could do what that shark did."

"Yuh-huh!"

"NUH-UH!"

"YUH-HUH!"

Nico resisted yelling "Nuh-uh" yet again that morning. Instead, he fixed Pedro with a haughty look, popped on his bottle cap, and stood up. "You better hope I'm right. Because we promised Blu and Jewel we'd go to the beach today."

Pedro's face visibly whitened as Nico laughed and flew out of their hollow.

* * *

><p>It was still white as he lay on the warm sand of the beach, listening to the waves hitting shore and soaking up the sunlight he had been deprived of for 48 hours. Nico lay next to him, arms stretched behind his head and bottle cap protecting his face from the sun, the perfect picture of relaxation. Pedro, although in just as comfortable a position, could not resist glancing at the water every four or five seconds.<p>

"Nico…I think I saw something."

"It's not a shark." The canary's voice was barely audible over the muffling bottle cap.

"You didn't even let me tell you what it was!"

"Well it's not a shark."

Pedro crossed his arms and scowled at his friend.

"Don't give me that look," Nico said.

"How did you…?"

"I see all."

"What…?"

Nico did not answer Pedro's flabbergasted outburst. The cardinal fixed his gaze on the ocean again.

"Nico!"

"IT'S NOT A SHARK."

"How do you know?"

"Dude, you've gotta knock this off once the kids get here," Nico said, never lifting his cap. "Are you really that scared?"

"_No," _Pedro protested, rather adamantly.

"I don't believe you."

Pedro stuck his tongue out at the canary.

"Don't stick your tongue out at me."

Pedro was about to flip when three little blue balls tackled him to the ground.

"Uncle Pedro! Uncle Pedro!"

"I missed you!"

"I missed you more!"

"Why do you smell like peanuts?"

"Hey there, Mini Macaws!" the cardinal said, laughing. He gave Javier, currently trying to scramble up his rotund belly, a noogie. Scowling at the offensive act, Javier slid off.

Pedro leaned closer to the eldest Blue Macaw chick. "Hey, I got a favor," he whispered. He beckoned Javier closer and began whispering more intently.

"What…are you…whispering about?" Blu asked, panting and landing beside Pedro and his son. "Javier, you have _got…_jeez…to slow down. You can't keep just…rocketing…off like that."

"But Mama says I'm doing great!"

"Yeah, well, Papa says slow down."

"I think I'll listen to Mama."

Blu frowned, eyebrows drooping in a not-amused expression. "Of course you will."

Javier giggled. Abelina suddenly appeared out of nowhere, tugging at her father's feathers. "Papa! Papa!"

"Yes, Abelina?"

"I wanna go swimming!"

"Go ask your mother."

"She said to ask you."

Blu sighed. "Of course she did. Well, come on," he said, taking off and flying the two feet to the shore. Abelina squealed and followed her father, plopping into the water next to him and dousing him with salt spray.

Seeing Blu in the water and Jewel, Nico, and Rey talking a little ways away, Pedro grinned. He backed up a little, beckoning to Javier to follow, for some private space.

"Now, about that favor…"

* * *

><p>"Richie's great!" Nico said, sitting up and dusting himself off from the chick's attack. Nico had somehow managed to completely miss hearing the chicks knock Pedro to the ground, and as a result had been totally unprepared for Rey and Abelina to bombard him shortly after leaving Pedro. Abelina had fluttered off to Blu at Jewel's suggestion, desperate for a swim, and Rey was perfectly content to sit in the sand wearing his uncle's bottle cap as Nico and his mother talked.<p>

"What did you guys do?" Jewel asked.

"Have you ever played video games?"

"What are those?"

Nico shook his head sadly. "I would have asked the same question a mere two days ago. And now, I don't know how I ever lived without them."

"Well, what are they?" Jewel asked a second time.

"They're games on the TV!"

"On the TV? Like, that you watch?" The only familiarity Jewel had with television stemmed from visits to Linda and Tulio.

"Yes! You have this controller thing, and you press buttons, and the characters move on screen. And depending on what game you play, you have to make the characters do different stuff. Like in Super Smash Bros—"

"Super what now?"

"Super Smash Bros! You literally just smash each other! Dah, it's awesome!"

Rey peeked out from underneath Nico's bottle cap, which was too big and kept falling over his eyes. "Mama, I wanna play!"

"We don't have that game, honey."

"Oh…"

"I'm sorry, sweetie."

Nico angled his bottle cap on Rey's head so it rested almost diagonally, the only way it would fit without dropping off of the little bird. "Maybe you can come with me and Pedro one day. Richie's awesome, you would like him."

"Yeah!"

"We'll see," Jewel said carefully.

"Yeah! I gotta go tell everyone!" Rey said excitedly. He started to fly off, remembered he was still wearing Nico's bottle cap, and threw the makeshift hat at his uncle before diving into the water.

Nico put his bottle cap back on, smiling at Rey's energetic movements from afar. He turned to Jewel, but recoiled at the glare he met.

"What?"

"Stop undermining my authority."

"Undermining your authority?"

"I don't know this Richie guy, I don't want my kids going there to play whatever these things are called."

"Why? Richie's great!"

"I don't know if I can trust him."

Nico scowled.

"What?" Jewel abruptly realized her mistake. "Oh, Nico, it's nothing personal, just...some of the birds you know are shady."

Nico crossed his arms and fixed Jewel with a saucy look. "Ain't nothin' wrong with trying to get the kid something fun."

"I guess not. I'm just being careful."

Nico opened his mouth to reply in a sassy fashion, but reluctantly closed it. "I know..." he pouted.

"It's not that I'm _against _meeting him. I just didn't want to get Rey's hopes up before anything happened."

"Yeah, yeah, I know...Pedro and I are going back tomorrow night. Wanna come?"

"Those kids that I've been talking about? I have to watch them."

"Oh…right…"

Jewel smiled, looking over the canary at the kids in question splashing in the water. She suddenly frowned. "Where's Javier?"

Nico turned around, saw the three figures in the water, and also frowned. "Where's _Pedro_?"

* * *

><p>Pedro peered between the bush's leaves, squinting to see the two small specks that were Jewel and Nico. He smiled as they fluttered towards the water.<p>

"Awright, Javier, we're in the clear." Pedro retreated through the leaves back onto the other side of the bush, where Javier was hopping on the boardwalk.

"I really get to help you?"

"You bet."

"Then where do we go?"

The smug cardinal pointed across the boardwalk to the street. "Second to last shop on the left."

Javier followed Pedro's finger. His grin split wide when he saw the display in the window at which Pedro was pointing.

"_Sweet._"

* * *

><p>"He was with Pedro last time I saw him," Blu yelled from the water. "They probably went to get a Popsicle or something."<p>

"I bet you're right," Jewel agreed. She tested the water with one of her claws. "It's nice today. Coming in, Nico?"

Nico shook his head. "I gotta get hot before jumping in."

"Suit yourself." Jewel jumped in, swimming up to her kids and splashing them playfully.

Nico smiled, watching the Blue Macaw family (minus one) playing in the waves. He flopped onto his back, slipped his bottle cap over his eyes, and prepared to soak up some more sun.

About ten minutes passed of perfect relaxation, the antics of the Blue Macaw family providing an amusing soundtrack for the canary. He felt himself slipping into sweet unconsciousness, the rhythm of his breathing matching the rhythm of the waves, soothing warmth enveloping his entire body, bottle cap creating a perfectly dark atmosphere for his drooping eyes…

Freezing wet suddenly hit him harder than an arrow smacking a target. He sputtered and recoiled underneath the feeling of frigid water, trying to sit up but instead forced to turn onto his stomach to protect his face from the brutal cold.

He managed to look to his side, where Pedro and Javier were struggling to control their exuberant laughter as they manned a bright blue plastic squirt gun.

"DAAAAAAAAAH!" Nico dove into the heavy stream of water being cranked by Pedro, using his bottle cap as a shield. The water bounced off the cap and squirt in numerous awkward directions. One stream reflected back to the squirt gun, hitting Javier, who was supporting the barrel for aim. He fell, and the gun teetered sideways, making it impossible for Pedro to pump the water or squeeze the trigger.

"SHOOT!" Pedro screamed, realizing he was completely doomed. He leapt to his feet, trying desperately to flee the enraged canary speeding him down.

He failed miserably. The yellow ball of fury, traveling at light speed, slammed into the cardinal and they both went to the ground in a raging tussle.

"GET 'IM, UNCLE PEDRO!" Javier squirmed his way from underneath the squirt gun, jumping up and down and brandishing his little fists at the sight of the fight.

"UNCLE, UNCLE!" Pedro screamed, Nico sitting victoriously on his back and holding Pedro's arm behind him.

"Uncle Nico's not your uncle. He's my uncle," Javier said, confused.

"No, no, uncle is what you cry when you lose a fight," Nico explained, rubbing his hands together. He hopped off of Pedro. "And Pedro definitely lost. You're next."

Nico dove for Javier, who screamed and dove into the waves. Nico followed him, finally pulling his leg underwater and forcing the laughing chick to cry uncle as well before completely submerging. Nico let go, and Javier swam to the protective form of his mother.

"Mama! Mama! Did you see me?"

"Yes, Javier, I did," Jewel replied, smiling. "But next time you go with your Uncle Pedro to get a squirt gun, tell me."

"But it was supposed to be a secret!"

"How'd you even _get _a squirt gun?" Nico asked Pedro, who had joined them, leisurely floating on his back.

"Toy store across the street is having a sale. All we had to do was get Pueblo to grab one of them from the display case."

"Who's Pueblo?" Blu asked.

"He's the owner's pet, his cage hangs right by the display. He gets toys all the time."

Jewel's face brightened. "Really? Abelina, maybe we can get that Beanie Baby you really want—"

Nico and Pedro both flipped over, paddling their way furiously to Jewel. Nico reached her first. He grabbed a feather and yanked her down before she could say anything else, whispering fervently in her ear.

"No! We already had Pueblo reserve one in the back for her birthday! Stop talking!"

Jewel covered her mouth. "I mean…Abelina, do you want some ice cream?"

Abelina cocked her head. "What were you saying before, Mama?"

"Here, I'll take you!" Nico offered desperately, taking her hand and guiding her towards shore. "Ice cream ice cream ice cream!"

Abelina still looked confused, but didn't question further.

"Wait! I want ice cream!" Rey and Javier yelled simultaneously, paddling to keep up with Nico.

"You don't get ice cream," Nico told Javier. "You hit me with a squirt gun."

"But Uncle Nicoooooooooo!"

"You will be shunned if you come along."

Rey stuck his tongue out at Javier, who crossed his arms and continued following Nico and his siblings as they walked across the sand, shaking themselves dry.

"I'm coming."

"I'm not getting you ice cream." Nico's smile betrayed his true intentions.

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not!"

Their cries echoed back to Blu, Jewel, and Pedro, bobbing in the water and laughing at the tiny disappearing specks as they headed towards the boardwalk.

Jewel turned to Pedro. "So, _why_ did you hit Nico with a squirt gun?" she asked.

* * *

><p>"Three of your finest ice cream sandwiches, please," Nico told Carlos.<p>

The pudgy bird flashed a thumbs-up and ambled off to the ice cream cart a few feet away.

"We each get one?" Rey asked, brown eyes wide with the promise of an ice cream sandwich bigger than he was all to himself.

"Your parents would kill me if I gave you that much sugar. One's for you to share with Javier and Abelina, one's for me and Pedro because I know he'll be mad if I don't get him something, and one's for your parents for the same reason."

"Oh…"

"Buck up, boy. Soon, you'll be able to eat a whole thing by yourself."

Rey visibly brightened.

"Question is...how do we get 'em back?" Nico pondered, just realizing the obvious problem. "Should've brought Pedro with me, he could carry one…"

"I'll carry one, Uncle Nico! I'm strong!" Javier boasted. He flexed for emphasis.

"Not quite strong enough, kiddo," Nico laughed. "I can barely even carry one."

All three kids looked perplexed, although the sights and sounds of the boardwalk distracted them from the problem at hand. Nico glanced around, taking in the bike riders, skateboarders, and pedestrians.

Skateboarders?

He smiled as he saw some punk teenager stupidly leave his withered skateboard by the side of the road. Nico dove for his chance, flying over to the board, standing underneath it, and guiding it towards the kids from below.

"Where'd you get that?" Abelina asked.

Nico pointed to the side of the road, where the teen had returned with an ice cream cone but no skateboard. "It's his own fault," he said, chuckling at the teen's alarmed look. "Who just leaves their skateboard?" He emerged from the board bellows as Carlos returned, bearing three ice cream sandwiches.

"Using this to get the sandwiches back?" Carlos asked.

"You bet. Thanks for the ice cream, dude."

"No prob. When you performing at The Branch again?"

"Night after tomorrow," Nico replied. Seeing that all three Blue Macaws were situated on the board, Nico motioned to Carlos to give them the ice cream. He placed the ice cream on the board face, one in front of each of the kids for them to hold onto.

"Thanks again!" Nico cried, hopping onto the back.

"You're welcome!" Carlos said, going to the back of the board. "Need a push?"

"Please."

Carlos grunted and heaved the skateboard. It slowly rolled down the boardwalk, gaining speed as it turned downhill towards the beach.

The kids screamed delightedly as the board went faster, devouring distance until it was a mere few yards from the sand. Nico hopped up and down on the back nose, finally providing enough force to weigh it down. The skateboard came to a screeching halt.

"Why'd you stop it here?" Rey asked.

"I need a favor from you guys." Nico winked.

* * *

><p>"Uncle Pedro!" Javier yelled, flying from the boardwalk to the water. His siblings trailed close behind.<p>

Pedro, still floating on the water, opened one eye lazily. "What's up?"

"Uncle Nico needs your help," Abelina piped.

"With what?"

"Getting the ice cream sandwiches back," Rey explained.

"Sandwiche_s_?" Pedro asked, putting extra emphasis on the s.

"He got one for us and two more for you and Mama and Papa," Abelina said.

"As he should have. I forgot you guys couldn't lift 'em." Pedro paddled back to shore and shook his feathers out. "Hang tight, kiddies."

Pedro flew off to the boardwalk, peering down the sidewalk. He expected to see Nico still hanging by the food carts guarding the human-size ice cream, but could not spot his friend anywhere.

Thinking a normal ground-level view might be more efficient for spotting the tiny yellow canary, Pedro lowered himself. He heard wheels grating against the sidewalk behind him right before he landed, considerably higher than he would expect the ground to be. And it didn't feel quite like a sidewalk.

Bushes started moving past him, and Pedro looked down. He was most definitely not on a sidewalk. He was on a skateboard.

Pedro heard extremely familiar laughter behind him and turned to see Nico waving and doubling over in laughter, getting further away by the second.

"NICOOOOOOO!" Pedro suddenly realized that Nico had been waiting in the bushes with the skateboard, biding his time until Pedro landed, at which time he'd pushed the skateboard between the cardinal and the ground. And then had pushed with all his might. Which wasn't that much, but enough to send Pedro careening down the boardwalk.

Pedro grasped the sides of the skateboard for dear life. Nico was now a speck in the distance, although Pedro could still tell his friend was having trouble standing up straight. If he ever survived this skateboard trip, Nico was going _down_. And not down in a hip, happening way.

Pedro ducked as the skateboard flew underneath the outstretched legs of a random passerby. The board miraculously avoided hitting any of the moving targets in its path, but Pedro still clung like a frightened child clinging to his mother's leg.

"NICOOOOOOO!"

The skateboard finally slammed against a fence marking the border between the boardwalk and the beach. The only reason Pedro did not shoot off the board and into the wood of the fence was his iron grip. He released his white knuckles, waited a moment for feeling to return to them, and then rocketed off in search of revenge.

* * *

><p>"So whose side are you on?" Nico asked Javier as the two birds high-fived.<p>

"Whichever side happens to have the best prank."

"You mean whichever side happens to be performing a prank?"

"Yeah."

"Nice."

"I'm on your side, Uncle Nico!" Abelina cried.

"Abelina, dear, it's not nice to take sides," Blu said. He and Jewel, attracted by the uproarious sounds of Nico laughing and Pedro screaming, had joined the birds (and the ice cream) on the boardwalk.

"But Javier kind of did—"

Nico laughed. "Don't listen to them, sweet—"

"NICOOOOOOOOOO!"

Nico abandoned thanking his niece and, without even turning around, promptly began to run away from the speeding cardinal bullet fast approaching him.

Pedro landed as Nico started scrambling across the sand. The cardinal halted only long enough to grab an ice cream sandwich before motoring off again, straight for Nico.

Pedro opened the ice cream sandwich, quickly catching up to Nico. "HEY! CHICO!"

Nico turned at the sound of Pedro's angry shout, despite his better judgment. Pedro put on an extra burst of speed, plowing the canary into the sand and the canary's face into the ice cream sandwich.

Pedro yelled and gloated victoriously as Nico peeled the chocolate substitute for bread off his face. The normally yellow feathers were now completely white from the sandwich innards. He licked off the ice cream surrounding his beak and wiped it from his eyes.

"Now I'm stained with both coffee _and _ice cream. You are going to pay for this."

Pedro was laughing too hard to care.

"Hey, Nico! You got something on your face!" Blu yelled, wearing a smug expression that clearly communicated he was ecstatic he had even thought of a comment, no matter how sub-par it was.

Nico glared. "Keep talking if you want to be drafted into this war."

Blu shut his mouth.

"That's what I thought."

* * *

><p>A few hours later, Nico was still trying to remove the ice cream from his feathers, which were barely even yellow anymore thanks to the ice cream's combined effort with the coffee from the day before. The sunscreen Pedro felt the need to cover Nico with didn't help either.<p>

Not that he really cared. The sun, the surf, and the company refused to let Nico think about anything remotely bad, save for his vengeful thoughts on Pedro.

The cardinal in question was currently sunbathing on a Frisbee he'd found half buried in the sand. The Frisbee bobbed gently on the waves, and Nico was pretty sure Pedro had fallen prey to the hypnotic lulling of the ocean just as the canary had earlier.

He needed to ruin that.

Nico splashed some more salt water on himself, which as of yet proved useless in removing stubborn stains. He glanced around him for inspiration, and was surprised to find it in a grey beach sign bearing the warning "Dogs Must Be On a Leash" (Luiz's least favorite sign, despite the fact that no one really enforced the rule.)

A smile split Nico's face wide open. He triumphantly straightened his bottle cap and headed for the sign, trying to think of where to find scissors.

* * *

><p>The sun, the surf, the company—it all worked for Pedro. Nothing was better than just lazing about in good weather with good friends, occasionally taking a break to play Marco Polo, get ice cream, or rub said ice cream into your best friend's face.<p>

Pedro opened one eye to glance towards the beach, where last he checked, the kids were napping, Blu and Jewel were cuddling while looking towards the clouds, and Nico was desperately trying to remove the coffee, ice cream, and sunscreen stains.

The cardinal giggled. Jumping on the middle of the discarded sunscreen bottle and sending a shot of white semi-liquid at Nico strong enough to knock him down had been an accident. Sort of. Not really. But now he looked delightfully like a ghost.

Pedro's eye landed on Blu, Jewel, and the kids, but not Nico. Unless he was underwater, this was alarming.

But not as alarming as the triangular-shaped grey fin slicing its way through the waves towards Pedro's Frisbee.

Pedro's eyes widened in both fear and disbelief, knowing full well that a gigantic monster with teeth bared and the delicious taste of cardinal on its one-track bloodthirsty mind lay beneath the fin.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH JAWS JAWS JAWS JAWS JAWS JAWS JAWS JAWS!" Every part of Pedro's body but his mouth froze; he couldn't move, no matter how much his brain screamed at his body to do so. The fin gained speed, coming ever closer, and Pedro knew that if he dove into the waves and tried to swim away, he was done for—oh, wait, he could fly.

The fin reached the Frisbee before Pedro's wings could reach the air, and the throwing toy flipped, sending Pedro into the water along with it.

He screamed again, but the waves swallowed his shrill cry. His eyes pinched shut for his grisly end, waiting at any moment for the agony of sharp teeth ripping his head off to come—

Something touched him, and he recoiled in fear and pain. Except it didn't actually hurt. Instead of pointy teeth, it felt more like….cardboard?

Pedro finally opened his eyes, dreading the sight of dead black shark eyes, but instead saw two little canary feet kicking back and forth.

"WHAAAAAAT?" Pedro shouted before remembering that he was underwater. He quickly closed his mouth and stroked to the surface, about ready to explode with anger.

He broke through the water, but his need for oxygen denied him instant gratification. Instead, he had to wait to yell as Nico laughed uncontrollably, leaning against grey cardboard for support.

"You completely fell for it!" Nico cried. "You should have seen your face! I wish I had a camera!"

"I WISH I HAD A CAMERA FOR WHAT I'M ABOUT TO DO TO YOUR FACE!"

Pedro lunged at Nico, but the canary blocked his efforts with the grey cardboard. The cardinal tried in vain to scurry across the board, but continued to be thwarted.

"What _is _this?"

"A beach sign. I borrowed some scissors from Pueblo. Cut it triangular."

"It can't protect you for long!"

"Probably not." Nico winked and dove underwater, abandoning his shield. Pedro followed him, still desperate for retribution. Unfortunately, he was not as apt a swimmer as his canary friend, and Nico beat him to shore.

"NICOOOOOOOO!"

Nico laughed as Pedro screamed his name in rage, inadvertently waking the kids. They popped up, alarmed and confused at the sight of their wet uncles running at top speed across the sand. Blu and Jewel had stopped muttering to each other, also looking in alarm at their friends now speeding down the boardwalk.

Pedro rounded the corner of the sidewalk, still trying to hunt Nico down. But the canary had disappeared. All Pedro saw were beach-goers, walking down the boardwalk. His prey had escaped him.

His revenge would have to wait.

* * *

><p>"I haven't seen Pedro in a while," Jewel said, eyebrows raised. The sun was just starting to disappear beneath the ocean, spreading its last rays across the water's sparkling surface to say goodbye to another day. The cardinal had been gone since late afternoon, having surrendered his unsuccessful search for Nico. Shortly after Pedro fluttered off angrily, Nico had emerged from inside a discarded soda cup.<p>

Nico splashed some more water on himself. Again. "I ain't worried."

"You're not?" Blu asked, completely surprised.

"Ain't no way he can get me back for that Jaws thing. He'll have to admit defeat."

"Well good luck with getting him to do that," Jewel said. She turned to her kids, who were trying desperately to keep their eyes open. "You guys ready?"

"Yes, Mama…but I'm not tired."

"Abelina, honey, you are _so_ tired."

"No I'm not…can Papa carry me?"

Blu offered his wing, but Jewel frowned and blocked his effort. "No, sweetie, you've got to learn to fly even when you're tired."

"Why?"

"Because sometimes you have to do that."

"But…"

Blu patted his daughter's head. "Your mother's right, darling. It's a skill you need to have."

"Okay…"

Blu and Jewel winked at each other. "Okay, kids, let's go," they said simultaneously.

Nico waved as the Blue Macaw family left the beach, then took off in the direction of his own tree. Their hollows weren't too far from each other, but Nico and Pedro's was closer to the heart of the jungle, as opposed to the outskirts.

Despite his nonchalant attitude towards Jewel, Nico stayed alert the entire flight home, half expecting an angry cardinal to leap from the shadows. Nothing happened, and Nico started hoping Pedro was at least home as he landed on the outer branch.

"Pedro?" he called. No answer from the dark hollow. "Are you really that mad at me?" Nico edged a little closer.

Suddenly, Pedro jumped from a higher branch, knocking off Nico's bottle cap. He grabbed it victoriously and danced in front of Nico.

"I got yo' bottle cap! I got yo' bottle cap!"

"Give it back!" Nico yelled, jumping in a strained effort to retrieve his beloved hat. He almost reached, but Pedro threw the cap into the hollow.

"Good tactic, man," Nico said sarcastically. He fluttered into the hollow. "I'll _never _be able to get it in here…" He trailed off when he saw at least 50 different bottle caps, all of similar shapes and sizes, strewn over the floor of their tree.

Pedro was the one laughing uncontrollably this time at the sight of Nico surveying the floor, jaw dropped.

"WHAT IS THIS?" he finally sputtered.

"Betcha can't find it!"

Nico had already dropped to his knees and started sifting through the litter. "Where did you find all of this?"

"The beach. The boardwalk. The street. Garbage cans…"

"How long did this take you?"

"Five hours."

"DAH!" Nico frantically picked up a bottle cap, scrutinized it, and threw it back to the floor. He inspected another, and another, and another, as Pedro laughed in the background.

"Wait! No! I picked that one up already!"

"Well, I'm off to The Branch," Pedro said. "Good luck!" He saluted Nico as he departed, all the while laughing gleefully.

Nico continued his frenzied search, cursing Pedro under his breath.

He'd have to think of something _really _good next.

* * *

><p>Such a long chapter! Good thing I split it, this was not the original ending. Due to the split, the next chapter is going to be a little bit shorter, BUT this serves my purposes well because the next chapter is fairly dramatic. This will only stress the drama more.<p>

Hopefully they were decent pranks...(and hey, they're not quite done yet.) I would still really like prank suggestions!

Read and Review, please!


	4. Chapter 4

No ramblings this time! Just that this chapter is extremely short and it shouldn't have taken me nearly as long as it actually did to write. Oh well.

Wait, I lied. I do have something else to say. I asked for prank submissions in your reviews a chapter or two ago, and although I didn't use specific pranks, one submission from Catnip-Packet gave me an idea. And so I could not in good conscience take full credit for the prank Nico performs in this chapter, since inspiration was drawn from another suggestion. So thank you, Catnip-Packet! Keep up the good work!

I'm done now.

* * *

><p>"Two and a half hours," Nico grumbled, touching the bottle cap atop his head fondly. "Two and a half hours to find my bottle cap."<p>

Pedro smirked. "He was still looking when I got home."

"And how long did it take _you_ to find all those bottle caps?" Rafael asked.

"Five hours," Pedro admitted.

"You really have no life, do you?"

"Excuse me? I am the hip-hoppiest bird this side of the hollow."

"You sound more like a rabbit."

"A really cool rabbit."

"Yeah. Uh-huh."

Pedro made to lean against the window of _A Loja de Muitos Filmes, _but unbeknownst to him, it was not completely closed. The moment he rested his full weight against it, the partly open window gave way, spilling the cardinal out into the flowerbed.

Nico grinned, trying to stop himself from laughing out loud. Pedro flashed him a knowing look—he himself had closed and latched the window after arriving at Richie's. Nico avoided eye contact with his fallen friend, looking everywhere but his face and whistling nonchalantly.

"So what do you guys want to do tonight?" Richie said, helping Pedro clamber out of the flowerbed and back into the apartment. "I have a suggestion."

"Is it more Super Smash Bros?" Pedro asked.

"No, but that reminds me." Excitement paraded its way onto Richie's face. "There's this online tournament that I'm in for Super Smash Bros, a bunch of birds I play with on Xbox Live also use the Wii, and they're in it. It's a pretty big deal, the tourney's later tonight."

"Wait…what?"

"I want you to enter the Super Smash Bros tournament."

"How can we have a tournament? There's no one here."

"It's online."

"On what line?"

Richie sighed. "The Internet. That means that you can play against a bunch of other birds who aren't actually here."

"In a tournament?"

"Yes. I log on through the Wii."

"And you want me to play?"

"That's what I'm saying."

The excitement jumped from Richie's face to Pedro's. "I'm in, dude! It sounds off the block!"

Rafael and Nico shared a puzzled glance and then directed it at Pedro. "Off the block?"

"Yeah. Off the block."

"When did you start saying that?" Nico asked.

"Just now. I made it up."

"Isn't it off the heezy?"

"Well, yeah, but what's a heezy? And why do I want to be off of it?"

Nico fiddled with his bottle cap, clearly at a loss for words.

Pedro continued pleading his case. "Come on! Off the block! Like...chip off the old block! But cooler!"

"I guess that kind of makes sense," Rafael admitted.

"Yeah. It's a much better saying."

"Okay, well, anyway, you're in, Pedro?" Richie asked, large green eyes pleading.

"Duh!"

"Great!" Richie cried. "We'll have to make you a username and stuff, but that won't take long, and the tourney doesn't start until, like, eight, anyway."

Pedro's eyes went a little misty, already daydreaming about his assured victories.

"That being said," Richie continued, "I really want to watch _The Social Network._"

"That movie about nailbook?" Nico asked.

"Facebook."

"Oh."

"It's a really great movie, guys! Come on!"

Rafael shrugged. "Let's go for it."

Nico half-nodded his consent. Richie turned expectantly towards Pedro, still staring off into the distance. Nico hit him on the arm.

"What? Oh, yeah, Social Nets, whatever."

Richie cheered and went to get the DVD.

* * *

><p>Rafael, Nico, and Pedro all cocked their heads at the exact same angle as they listened to Mark Zuckerberg.<p>

"_Dios mio_," Rafael said.

"Are you hearing what I'm hearing?" Nico asked.

"He sounds _exactly _like Blu," Pedro stated.

"Huh?" Richie sounded, popcorn halfway to his mouth.

All three birds shushed and motioned frantically for Richie to stop talking over Mark Zuckerberg. A girl spoke, then Mark did again.

"OH MY GOD!"

"It is!"

"It's the same voice!"

"Was Blu _in _this movie?"

Richie laughed. "Does he really sound like your friend?"

"YES!" All three chorused at once.

"Uncanny."

"I don't think I can seriously watch this movie," Nico said. "All I can see is Blu sitting there."

"Really? It's working for me," Pedro replied. "He's making an idiot of himself in front of that girl."

"This is true," Rafael sighed. "And he had such a good teacher…"

Nico, Pedro, and Rafael managed to sit through the rest of the movie without their mouths agape the whole time. (Although Nico and Pedro were often struck with the giggles.) The credits rolled and Richie turned expectantly towards his audience.

"Well?"

"It was a good movie, bro, but…I liked _Jaws _better," Pedro said gently.

"Second that," Nico agreed. Rafael merely nodded.

"I expected that," Richie said somewhat gloomily. "Pedro, you want to get signed on and registered?"

"Now you're talkin'!" Pedro jumped out of his seat and rubbed his hands together. "Where do we start?"

"Let me hook up the Wii."

Pedro smiled gleefully, ecstatic at the opportunity presenting itself that night. He ran off to join Richie with the gaming system, leaving Nico alone with Rafael.

Rafael turned to Nico, planning on asking if he wanted anything from the kitchen, but immediately halted when he saw the look on the canary's face. A calculator had nothing on the calculation currently residing in Nico's expression.

"What are you thinking?"

The canary smiled slyly. "Nothin' much."

"Liar."

"Don't worry about it."

Rafael rolled his eyes, knowing full well that he would have to worry about it later.

* * *

><p>Nico sipped his soda patiently, waiting for the perfect moment. Richie and Rafael sat on the couch, each trying to stuff more Twizzlers in his mouth than the other, while Pedro continued to trounce his Smash opponents. He grinned after defeating three more players with ease.<p>

"Check that out!" He bragged, blowing on his fingernails.

Richie leaned next to the earpiece of the headset resting beside him on the couch. "Who is this guy?" a crackly voice emanating from the headpiece asked.

"Apparently a prodigy," another crackly voice answered.

Pedro grinned wide, standing up and stretching. After rewarding his arms with the quick respite, he ambled his way over to the window, announced he was taking a bathroom break, and flew into the flowerbed.

"Pedro! Make it quick! The next round is the qualifier for the championships round!"

"Don't rush me!" Pedro yelled back at Richie, closing the window a little more for privacy. Richie hadn't finished laughing before Nico had leapt off the couch.

"What are you doing?"

"Did I tell you that it took me _two and a half hours _to find my bottle cap?" Nico replied, jimmying Pedro's controller just loose enough from the Wii so he wouldn't notice. "_Two and a half hours. _Plus, I'm still half white from all the sunscreen he squirted on me yesterday."

"So you're screwing up his game?"

"Nah. It'll only take him a second to realize the controller ain't in, and you're playing stock, so he's got three lives. The way he's goin', it won't mess him up at all."

"I guess..."

Rafael chuckled. "I don't know, Nico. He's really into this contest. He's gonna go crazy."

"That's the point!" Nico said happily as he fluttered back to the couch.

Pedro flew in from the flowerbed a moment later. "Who's gonna be pummeled next?"

Richie lifted the earpiece again. "You guys ready?"

"What? Course I'm ready," Pedro said indignantly.

"I'm not talking to you."

"Oh…"

"All right, Pedro, you're against Manuel, Pierre, and Yolanda next, from Spain, France, and Switzerland, respectively."

"BRAZIL!"

"Yes. You are from Brazil."

Pedro saluted Richie and picked up his controller, visibly prepped for the fight. The clock counted down, and all the characters on screen launched into battle.

Except Pedro's.

Pedro furrowed his brow, furiously jimmying the joystick in a vain effort to force his character to move. "Fox! Go, man!"

Nico placed a wing over his mouth to stifle his chuckles.

"FOX! WHY AREN'T YOU MOVING?"

On screen, Captain Falcon effortlessly pummeled the motionless Fox, sending him to the edge of the arena.

"Nononononononono!"

Captain Falcon caught up to Fox's flying form quickly, sending him off the edge with one punch.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Pedro grasped his head desperately, staring at the screen with a look of utter disbelief and betrayal. "WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING?"

He shook the controller violently, pressing every button his fingers could find. Nothing worked, despite Pedro's frantic screams aimed at the TV. It was as Fox was propelled for a second time off the stage that he realized Nico was laughing.

"WHY IS THIS FUNNY TO YOU?"

"Dude! Just plug in your controller!"

Pedro narrowed his eyes and whipped his head around. His eyes grew wide when he saw the barely disconnected controller. He dove for it with all the intensity of a baseball player going in for a home run slide.

He slammed the plug back into the Wii and returned to his controller just as his beloved Fox flew off the arena for a third and final time.

"Player 1—Eliminated," the game announced. Complete silence followed, shattered only by "What was that?" and "What happened to him?" emitting from the headset laying untouched next to a stunned Richie.

Pedro turned around, knives and daggers flashing in his eyes. "Did you do that?" he asked, piercing Nico with his gaze.

Nico, just as stunned as Richie, shook his head. "Pedro, I—"

"Did. You. Unplug. My. Controller."

"I didn't mean for you to lose—"

"You did unplug it?"

"I'm sorry! It was supposed to be a prank!"

"WHAT?"

Nico paused a moment, mouth open but no words coming out. "Pedro, I'm sorry—"

"You're _sorry_? I just _lost_ because of your stupid prank!"

"I thought you would notice the controller was unplugged right away!"

"I JUST LOST!"

"I didn't think you would!"

Rafael and Richie exchanged terrified glances as Pedro raised his voice in voluminous anger. Nico's rose in apologetic pitch.

"Pedro, I'm sorry!"

"None of my pranks hurt you!"

"I know! I didn't mean for this one to!"

"Well it did!"

Nico had taken his bottle cap off, holding it in front of him as a sort of shield. Had it not been solid metal, he would have reduced it to rubble already, he was holding it so tightly. "Pedro, I-I'm really sorry, I know you were really excited about the tournament—"

"Obviously you didn't!"

"I did! I really thought it would be a harmless prank!"

"I can't believe you _did_ this!"

"I'm sosososososososososo sorry, buddy..."

"I didn't do anything like this to you!"

Nico's apologetic expression became even more nervous. "I-I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to make you lose! I-it's just a game, right?"

"I was good at it! I was about to win! And you completely ruined it, you _PIPSQUEAK_!"

Nico stopped squeezing his bottle cap. Shock flitted across his face, followed by hurt, betrayal, then anger. He narrowed his eyes, frowned, and slammed his bottle cap back onto his head. Wordlessly and with a pained look at Pedro, he turned and flew out of the apartment.

Complete silence followed Nico's exit. Pedro kept his arms crossed in indignation, expression not softening as he continued to glare at the window.

Rafael coughed. Pedro turned, still scowling. "What?"

"Feel better?"

"About what?"

"About losing."

"No."

"I had a feeling this prank war wasn't going to end well…"

"It's his fault."

"Entirely."

"It _is_."

"Yep."

"Why do I have the feeling you're not being serious?"

"Because I'm not."

"He unplugged my controller!"

"You didn't have to get so mad about it."

Pedro's scowl deepened. "I really wanted to win."

"Enough to insult him like that?"

Pedro's expression softened. "Well—I—"

"You called him a pipsqueak," Rafael said quietly.

Realization suddenly hit Pedro like a wrecking ball. "Oh my God. I called him a _pipsqueak._"

Richie glanced from Rafael to Pedro. "Even I know he's super sensitive about that."

Pedro stared at the TV screen, where the championship match was taking place. He watched sickeningly as Fox picked up a baseball bat and whacked Pikachu off the arena. He put his head in his hands.

What had he done?

* * *

><p>Anyone who gets <em>The Social Network <em>reference...props to you. (Jesse Eisenberg!)

Review?


	5. Chapter 5

Hello! I got this up more speedily than I planned! Part of this is because I'm going to Michigan for the weekend and felt bad that I wouldn't be able to update, part of this is in honor of the fact that I got the Rio DVD last night (complete with special code to play Angry Birds: Rio edition on my Mac), and part of it is because I ended up making the chapter shorter than originally conceived (it is literally almost entirely angst and fluff. But I feel it's emotionally necessary).

Also, parts of the chapter are kinda similar to "Ambitions". But I tried to make it as different as possible. I really did.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p>Nico had to take a break. Although he had only been flying for fifteen minutes, the hurt and anger boiling within him was making the flapping of his wings extra violent: his arms burned with the unusually forceful motions necessary to keep himself aloft that night. He was already exhausted, and trying to prevent tears coursing down his cheeks took a surprising amount of energy.<p>

He landed on the first tree branch he found, one of thousands in the middle of the rainforest. A few deep breaths steadied his racing heart and slowed down the blood rushing through his veins, a direct result of Nico's emotional jitters. Now that he'd stopped moving, Nico could not prevent hot tears from escaping his eyes soundlessly, dripping down his face in a maddening betrayal of his inner emotions. He wiped them away with his left wing, hoping no one could hear the loud sniffle he emitted on accident.

Another deep breath broke off the onslaught of unmanly tears. Thank God, the mere fact that he had been crying was almost enough to make Nico cry again.

He never should have unplugged Pedro's controller. He had singlehandedly ruined the fun and complacency of the friendly prank war. Nothing Pedro had done to Nico had _harmed _him—just really, really annoyed him. The sunscreen and the ice cream would wash off eventually, and he had found his bottle cap after a while. Pedro loved being able to take pride in his gaming skill; Nico had known this, interfering with the victory Pedro's pride so desperately wanted had been a mistake of epic proportions.

"_PIPSQUEAK." _Pedro's yell echoed through Nico's head. Despite Nico's best efforts, the fresh memory forced more tears through his already red eyes, like a towel being squeezed to salvage every drop of water.

He deserved to be called a pipsqueak. That was what he was, wasn't he? A little guy who couldn't just watch his best friend take pride in his impressive hand-eye coordination skills. No, instead he had to tear him down, all for a laugh. Even before that, he had treaded the line dangerously, he never should have scared Pedro half to death with that shark gag, he knew how Pedro got when he was scared. He _was _a pipsqueak. Pedro had been completely right to yell at him.

More tears came. Trying desperately not to sniffle, nor give any indication of his tearful state to anyone who might have noticed him alone in the darkness, Nico sank down on the tree branch. His bottle cap fell over his eyes. Nico didn't fix it. Maybe if he couldn't see the world, the world couldn't see him.

* * *

><p>"What do I do, Raf?" Pedro asked desperately. He had been pacing the floor for almost twenty minutes now, alternating between muttering and yelling at himself.<p>

"Give him some time to cool down. Then go apologize."

"I should be apologizing _now_."

"You might want to give him some time."

Pedro emitted a strange sound of frustration, something caught between a grunt and a yell. "I should be apologizing _now!_"

"Pedro, Pedro, Pedro," Rafael said, moving closer to his friend. "You and Nico never get in fights. That means that when you do, it's a pretty big deal. And usually in fights like this, both parties just need some time to cool down. Okay?"

Pedro made the same noise, but a little quieter this time.

"Okay?"

"Okay, Raf."

Richie looked nervously at the pair, the toucan's black wing draped over the cardinal's sullen form. "Has this ever happened before?"

"Have we gotten in fights?" Pedro asked. "Sure. Never one this big."

"Oh."

Pedro, suddenly realizing his legs were ready to buckle, plopped down on the floor. "I don't know what to do. Waiting doesn't seem right."

"Well what do you think Nico wants?" Rafael prodded gently.

Pedro drew his knees up to his chest. He didn't know. None of their fights had ever escalated to the point of Pedro screaming "pipsqueak" at his size-conscious friend. Although he could certainly guess, he had no idea how angry or hurt Nico actually was. Normally, when something upset Nico, he would fly around for a while to clear his head, no real destination in place. Pedro had always found it funny to hear where Nico ended up after one of his burn-off-the-anger flights. Was that what Nico was doing right now? Depending on his mood, Nico could get pretty far away, he zoned out when he got in that mindset. If this was the most upset Nico had ever been…where could he end up?

Pedro looked out the window. He could just barely see raindrops falling through the inky black sky. When had it started raining?

"Is it raining?"

Rafael and Richie both looked outside. "Huh. Guess it is."

"I gotta go find him."

"What?"

"Nico flies around when he gets mad. I don't want him out there if the weather starts turning. Look how hard the leaves on that tree are moving."

"Maybe he flies around for a reason," Rafael said. "I still think you should give him some time."

Pedro shook his head. Rafael didn't understand: this was the second time in at least a month that Nico was in probable danger because of Pedro's actions. Weeks ago, Raoul, their apparently jealous drummer, had tried, as Blu put it in an effort to sound macho, 'knocking them off'. Pedro, fortunately for Raoul and unfortunately for Nico, had been drinking that night. The entirety of the following day had been devoted to Pedro trying to recollect the events of that night, and then desperately searching for Nico, who everyone (mostly Pedro) feared had been injured or worse in the time span since Pedro had seen him last. Everything turned out fine, or, at least, Nico insisted he had not actually been kidnapped (Pedro still couldn't remember where he'd concocted that notion).

And now, with the weather quickly picking up, Nico was off flying God-knew-where trying to burn off his anger and injury at his best friend. That was Pedro's fault. Nico shouldn't have had to do that in the first place.

"I've gotta go look for him, look, the wind's picking up."

"It's not that ba—" a sudden flash of lightning cut Rafael off. "Yeah, you should go find him."

"What do you think the chances are that he's home?" Richie asked.

"Not very high. I know Nico, he wouldn't just go home after this."

"Even in a storm?"

"If he even realizes there's one going on." Pedro braced himself for the frantic search about to ensue. "I'll see you guys later." With that, he opened the window, squeezed himself out, and closed it quickly before too much bad weather could infiltrate the apartment.

More lightning flashed after Pedro's departure, this time accompanied by low rumblings of thunder. Rafael sighed.

"You think they'll be okay?" Richie asked.

"From the storm or the fight?"

"Both."

"Nico will go home when he realizes there's a storm. And Pedro won't be able to search for long. They'll be fine, they never fight for long."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah. Not much could get between those two. Plus, they're supposed to perform tomorrow night. Do you want to come to The Branch to see them?"

"You sound so sure."

"Because I am. What do you say?"

"Eduardo is gone for one more day. All right."

Rafael smiled. "Good."

* * *

><p>"Nicoooooo! Nicoooooooo! NICOOOOOO!"<p>

"It's Marco, not Nico," a snooty parrot said as he flew past Pedro.

"What?" Pedro paused, hovering in mid-air. "I'm not playing Marco Polo, you idiot! Who plays Marco Polo in the _air_? That's a horrible idea."

"Whatever," the parrot huffed, flying into the rainforest.

"WAIT! Have you seen a yellow canary?"

The parrot, also hovering, turned around. "No, why?"

"I'm looking for my friend. Nico."

"Oh. Well no. Good luck. Better find him soon, it's storming pretty bad."

"REALLY? Thank you, I HADN'T NOTICED."

The parrot huffed again and flew away without turning around. Pedro was left wet and hovering alone, snotty remarks about stating the obvious and worries about Nico running through his head.

Lightning split the night sky in two, adding a bright blue tinge to the murky black. The lightning strikes were increasing in number, and so was the volume of the thunder that followed. Pedro shook his head to clear it of any thoughts except where Nico might have gone, and motored off towards the Blu Bird Sanctuary.

Hours had passed before Pedro gave up his search. The cardinal practically collapsed on the threshold of his hollow, staying standing only long enough to see that Nico's bed was empty.

* * *

><p>Nico groggily opened his eyes. He panicked when he saw only black, but immediately calmed down when he remembered it was only his bottle cap. He removed it, and although it burned his eyes, Nico relished in the weak beam of morning sunlight that greeted him.<p>

Nico stretched and yawned, rubbing his sore back. Why did it hurt so bad? He didn't usually have back pain. Must've been the branch...why was he on a branch?

Oh. Right.

Nico frowned as he remembered the reason he hadn't slept in his own hollow, wondering if Pedro had been alarmed at his absence last night. Unless the cardinal had spent the night at Richie's again. It seemed likely. He probably didn't want to run the risk of seeing Nico.

Nico stood and cracked his back, wondering where to go from here. Above him, a drop of water fell from a leaf, striking his bottle cap violently. He looked up and studied the leaf more closely. It, and all its neighbors, were soaked. He peered down onto the forest floor. That looked wet, too, more wet than just the usual morning dew. Had it rained last night?

Nico decided some coffee would clear his head.

* * *

><p>Pedro lay on his bed of leaves, thoroughly miserable. Nico had not returned last night, nor this morning, and Pedro was absolutely certain that the two friends would never speak again.<p>

"Pedro?"

The cardinal popped up, hoping to see the familiar face of a certain yellow canary. His face fell when he realized it was only a toucan.

"Oh. Hi Raf. Thought you were Nico."

"Our voices are completely different."

"I know."

"Where is he? You didn't find him last night?"

"No."

Rafael clearly saw the concern etched in Pedro's face. "I'm sure he's fine. Nico knows how to take care of himself."

Pedro's head plopped back down onto the leaves, eliciting a painful sound of impact that made Rafael wince. "What about you? Are _you_ okay?" he asked Pedro.

"I feel sick."

"Flu? Cold? Headache?"

"Guilt."

"Thought so."

"And the headache."

"Ah."

"Not only did I probably permanently ruin our friendship, but I couldn't find him in the storm last night. I don't know where he is. I don't know if he's okay."

"He's fine."

"How do you know?"

"Just a feeling."

Pedro sat up and glared at Rafael. "I don't want 'just a feeling', I wanted something more like 'I saw him and he was peachy.'"

Rafael sighed. "Pedro, I really think he just needs some time to calm down. You didn't permanently ruin your friendship. What if it was you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say Nico called you fat. What would you do?"

"I don't like this hypothetical."

"You also don't like the real situation."

Pedro grimaced. "Fair enough. I'd storm out and probably go downtown for a while."

"How long would you stay away?"

"I don't know…until I felt like I could face Nico."

"Aha! Key words!"

"What?"

"You said you'd stay away until you felt ready to see Nico. Nico's probably waiting until he feels he can face _you_."

"Why are you so logical?"

"It's my nature."

Pedro half-laughed, half-whined. He wasn't sure what he was feeling right now.

"Are you still worried about him?"

"Yeah."

"Don't be."

"Impossible."

Rafael laughed. "See? I'll bet anything that Nico thinks you hate him right now, and here you are stewing in guilt worrying about where he is."

* * *

><p>Nico knew for a fact that Pedro hated him. It was the only logical conclusion. Even Rafael would say that, and he was the most logical bird Nico knew.<p>

Guilty and restless thoughts weighed down on Nico like the heavy china cups on the barista's tray as she worked her way through the maze of tables outside the café. He wouldn't be surprised if the physical word "GUILT" had manifested itself atop his bottle cap, he felt so apathetic and drained.

The barista returned to inside the cutesy little coffee shop, refilled a few cups, and placed at least 10 new drinks on her tray. She ventured outside again, expertly balancing the drinks as she deposited them at the tables of their calling, one guest at a time. Now was his chance.

Nico flew out of the tiny tree on the patio he used as his perch, flying just high enough so that none of the humans would notice him. He zoomed to the little shop, rested on the roof a brief second, and then dove into the small window. Landing on the counter, he appreciatively sniffed the robust aromas encircling him. This was his favorite place in the world. Second only to The Branch.

Nico grabbed a plastic lid used for the on-the-go cups and held it under one of the coffee machines, the one that yielded strong, black coffee. Sometimes he squirted a little whipped cream or caramel flavoring into his makeshift cup, but today, he just needed the basics. Black would fit his mood perfectly.

Having expertly filled the lid to the brim, but not so high as to make it difficult to fly with, Nico exited the little window. He took his prize back to his tiny perch, settled in, and drank deeply.

* * *

><p>"I don't <em>wanna<em>."

"Aw, come on, smile!"

"I said I don't _wanna_."

"Smile for Ralfy!"

Pedro frowned deeper.

"That's not a smile."

"That was my point."

Rafael rolled his eyes and licked his ice cream cone, legs dangling off the edge of the ice cream shop roof. "At least eat some of your ice cream."

"I don't wanna!"

"Fine," Rafael said drily. He took Pedro's cone with one swift movement and threw it over the side. A sudden splat emanated from down below, followed by yells of "Hey!", "Ow!", and a random cat meow. Pedro sniggered.

"Ha! You smiled!"

"You took my ice cream cone!"

"To make you smile."

"That was an accident."

"An accident on purpose."

"Why couldn't you throw _your _ice cream?"

"I'm actually eating mine."

"Oh…" Pedro looked sorrowfully down at the poor soul who now had sherbet completely covering his hair. "I shouldn't have come out. What if Nico goes home while we're here?"

"Pedro, Pedro, Pedro, you just have to relax. You're sorry, I'm sure he's sorry. That's all you need for a friendship to be worked out."

"He has nothing to be sorry about."

"And you saying that right there is why I know this is going to work."

"We're supposed to perform tonight…"

"I'm aware."

"He's not going to show up."

"He will," Rafael said, certainty pervading his tone. "I know it. You'll see him there tonight, and by then, you'll both have had time to cool off. It'll be fine."

"You think…?"

"I know."

Silence followed Rafael's comforting words. Pedro still looked like someone had told him he only had an hour to live.

"Raf, I'm legit worried."

Pedro's tone, somehow more dire and lethargic than his previous worries, stopped Rafael from taking another lick of his cone. "What's wrong? I mean, besides the obvious."

"I should never have called him a pipsqueak, but…I mean…he's not big."

"Right."

"And there was a storm."

"I told you, he knows how to take care of himself. I'm sure he found shelter."

"It doesn't take much to knock him out of the sky…"

Rafael sighed. "Pedro, I know that I've already said everything I can say. That you have to give each other a little time, that you're being paranoid and Nico's fine, and that this will all work out."

"I _know, _Raf, I _know_…"

"And I know you know. Look, you two have this weird ability to know when something's up with the other, and although I personally think you're just worried because of this fight, I trust your instincts. If you're really worried and you think it's the right thing to do, then go look for him. I can tell you want to."

Pedro perked up. "I-um-I'm not really _that _worried," he lied. "Just…I would like to be sure."

Rafael smiled. "I would too. It's like I'm always telling Blu—you gotta think with _this_," he said, placing a hand over his heart.

"You say that all the time."

"Only because it's true."

Pedro rolled his eyes. "I'm going to look for him."

"I'll catch you later."

* * *

><p>Rafael watched Pedro fly away, wings fueled with a new sense of purpose. When he disappeared from the horizon, Rafael took off in the opposite direction, towards downtown.<p>

He didn't know Nico's whereabouts, and he had to admit this nagging worry was becoming more prevalent in his mind as the seconds wore on. Pedro was extremely worried, naturally, Rafael found that being on disagreeable terms with a loved one and then hearing about that loved one thrown into any sort of danger was one of the most alarming experiences anyone could live through. He himself had yelled at Juan, his 14th of 18 children, for unabashedly ripping out his feathers, only to find an hour later that Juan had run away. Since Juan rivaled Blu for one of the worst fliers in the history of Rio de Janeiro, agitation ate away at Rafael until fatherly distress completely replaced parental concern, and since then the toucan had decided that guilt was the absolute worst of all emotions.

So Pedro, despite Rafael's best efforts including jokes and ice cream, was not going to let the fight naturally come to an end.

And Rafael knew this wasn't a bad thing. If anything, it proved to show that Pedro was truly repentant, that he cared so much about Nico that he needed the awkward disquiet between them to end immediately. The toucan smiled at thinking about the inadvertent positive impacts of the fight—those two would probably never fight ever again. If anything, this would strengthen their friendship.

Rafael's quiet chuckle to himself, and the visual distraction of monkeys randomly running around everywhere, almost made him miss the tiny yellow dot lying underneath a coffee lid. He did a double take, hovering in place, and dove down upon realizing that it was, indeed, Nico.

Nico didn't budge when Rafael landed on the branch beside him. The toucan gingerly poked the sullen form. "Nico?"

"DAH!" Nico jumped, the coffee lid flying off his face and his bottle cap popping off to land beside him. "What—who—Raf?"

Rafael breathed a sigh of relief when Nico moved, dispelling his initial fears. "The one and only."

"Oh. Hi."

"I'm glad I found you. How are you feeling?"

"Like I want to die."

"And why is that?"

"I singlehandedly permanently ruined my and Pedro's friendship."

Rafael laughed. His suspicions were 100% correct. "You know that he's been saying the exact same thing?"

"I doubt it. What I did was unforgiveable."

"I wouldn't go that far. He did some bad stuff, too."

"I deserved it."

Rafael shook his head, the sly smile never leaving his face. "Nico, Pedro feels exactly like you do right now. He's practically nauseous with guilt, he wouldn't even eat ice cream over worry about you. Where _did _you go during the storm last night?"

"What storm?"

"The storm that affected Pedro more than it affected the landscape of Rio," he said, gesturing towards fallen tree branches and debris that littered the streets.

Nico furrowed his brow, taking in his surroundings for the first time. "Huh. That would explain why everything's wet."

"Unbelievable. You didn't even _notice_ the storm and Pedro's convinced you're lying hurt or worse underneath a gigantic tree branch. Or a building."

"I must have fallen asleep before it happened last night."

"Where?"

"I dunno. Some random tree branch in the middle of the forest."

"Nico, you've gotta go find Pedro and tell him that, he's going to burst a blood vessel pretty soon."

Nico laughed, but the sound had no mirth. "Thanks for trying. I know he doesn't care anymore. I wouldn't care about me anymore after last night."

"Wha—what?" Rafael sputtered. "You got in a fight! That's all there is to it! Are you sorry?"

"More than anything."

"Well he's sorry too, he's beating himself up about it!"

"Raf, you don't have to make stuff up to make me feel better. I'll get over it eventually. Maybe."

Rafael sputtered again; this time, with no recognizable words.

"What's eating you?"

"Why would I lie to you?"

"I dunno. It's gotta be hard for you now, you're caught in the middle. You have loyalties in both places."

"Shut up and listen to me!"

"Raf, I know you're trying to make me feel better, and I appreciate it. But the fact of the matter is, I know Pedro's mad, and he deserves to be. There's no way he can forgive me for this."

"Since when did you become so dramatically negative?"

"Since I ruined the friendship between me and my best friend."

"Nico, Pedro's sorry, he really is! I've been with him for like two hours!"

"Stop!" Nico snapped. "You're making it worse!"

"No, you stop and _listen to me_!"

Nico stood, anger replacing his gloomy aura. "I'm done! There's no way anyone can fix this, not even you! Pedro and I...we'll never be friends again." Nico paused as the gloom returned. "He hates me."

Rafael had no idea how to respond to the sight of Nico desperately trying to choke back tears. He had never seen either of his friends cry before, although, granted, Pedro had looked pretty close this morning. "You think he hates you?" he said quietly.

"I know he does!"

"Nico...I can guarantee he doesn't," Rafael assured. He should have taken his friends' conditions more seriously. It had taken forever, despite the clear warnings, for Rafael to reach the root of the problem.

"He does!"

"Pedro thinks you hate _him_," Rafael said, realizing just how serious the situation was as he said the words.

"No way."

Rafael remained silent, both angry that Nico didn't believe him and pained at the sight of the canary's expression.

Nico continued. "I don't know where I'm going to go, but I know I can't stay."

"If you need some time alone, go for it, but I don't think that's the best option." Rafael surprised himself at his very sudden change of viewpoints.

Nico shook his head. "No. I mean I can't stay at all. I don't know where I'm going to go, but...I can't stay in Rio." The canary turned to leave, but Rafael grabbed his foot before he could reach the air.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I just told you, I don't know!"

"You can't just _leave Rio!_You got in a fight with your best friend, this happens every day _somewhere_, it's not as big a deal as you're making it out to be!"

Nico flapped his wings energetically, trying to jimmy his leg loose. "I just wanna go!"

"And leave everything? You're performing tonight!"

"Yeah! But Pedro won't show up!"

"Nico, I'm going to give you a choice. You can either stop being a drama queen, go find Pedro, apologize, realize that everything I've said is true, and get on with your life, or you can fly away and leave everything behind in this weird melancholy existence you seem to prefer to lead. Which do you want?"

"Well, I want the first one—"

"Then _go apologize!_"

"But I know I can't have it!"

"WHY ARE YOU BEING SO DRAMATIC?"

Nico frowned, deeper than he had ever frowned before, and managed to tear his leg away from Rafael at last. As the canary pounded his way through the air, Rafael nearly cursed under his breath, and yelled, "NICO! If I don't see you at The Branch tonight, I will find you! RAFAEL KNOWS EVERYBODY!"

Nico did not respond. Rafael considered chasing him, but with the tiny canary's zooming speed, he knew it was next to futile. He turned to his left, where at least three monkeys stood, staring.

"Get out of here!" Rafael swooped his wing threateningly. The monkeys scattered, making their annoying monkey sounds. Why were they all out today? He never saw them out this much.

It was almost as alarming as the fact that Pedro was slowly but surely approaching an anxiety attack and Nico seemed to think that leaving Rio was a reasonable option. If they both continued like this...Rafael didn't even want to think about it.

* * *

><p>I know. A) Nothing actually happens in this chapter except gross overreactions, and B) I realize they're all going to have to search for Nico again, who woke up in almost the exact same fashion as Chapter 3 of Ambitions, and a performance is serving as the backdrop. Similarities. I tried. I promise similarities are going to stop there. Or I'm going to try to make them stop.<p>

Review?


	6. Chapter 6

Go. Read. Enjoy.

* * *

><p>How many times had he cried today?<p>

Nico didn't want to know. He hadn't cried like this since childhood, not since a very rude bouncer at The Branch told him he was too young to perform: "Get outta here, kid, you're too little. Probably always will be."

That was the day he met Pedro. Ironic.

Nico harped on the thought bitterly, fond memories of his friendship with Pedro melting into edgy regrets. Thinking about that day was no good. It would not help his condition in the slightest.

Actively trying to forget made the actual forgetting part much harder. "Get outta here, kid, you're too little. Probably always will be," dissolved into the first thing Pedro had ever said to him: "Are you hungry?" Then Pedro's innocent childhood question transformed into an angry shout: "PIPSQUEAK!"

Through the cacophony of dialogue, Nico kept hearing his name, but he couldn't place the pervading shouts as memories, and the other memories overshadowed it too completely for him to concentrate on it.

He shook his head, hoping to upset the delicate construction of memories and thoughts storming their way through his brain. It worked a little bit, at least in the sense that it brought him back to the real world.

The sun had just started to disappear beneath the horizon. Nico must have been flying for a few hours, the last time he'd noted the sun, it had been in its midday position. He remembered flying beneath it as he charged away from Rafael.

Stupid Rafael. The toucan had a knack for smoothing over tempestuous situations, when anyone needed help or advice, they went to him. As one of Nico's best friends, it was only right that he'd tried calming Nico down, but Raf had become so accustomed to achieving the desired diplomatic solution that he thought he could do anything. This was something Rafael couldn't do. And he was going to have to accept that. He would have to accept that no one, not even him, could fix the problem, and that Nico would just have to leave Rio. Tonight.

Dramatic. Psh. He was handling this so well they should make him a guidance counselor.

* * *

><p>"OI! BLU!"<p>

Blu jumped, a natural reaction despite the fact that he'd recognized Pedro's very distinctive yell almost instantly. "Yes, Pedro?"

"You seen Nico?" Pedro landed on the sidewalk across from Blu. Behind the Blue Macaw, his children raced back and forth across the pavement.

"No, why?"

"Kids! What did I tell you to do when we take walks? _Stay close,_" Jewel shouted at the moving children. She turned and ambled over next to her mate, raising an eyebrow. "This seems like déjà vu."

"It is. I can't find him. And I need to."

"Is Raoul back?" Blu asked, a slight hint of panic in his voice.

"Nononono, I just need to find him."

"Why?"

"I'd rather not go into it."

Jewel fixed Pedro with a glare she reserved for making her children, and Blu, shut up when they grated on her nerves. The glare also served to force the opposite. Pedro, a little frightened, began speaking before he knew it.

"He played a prank on me that made me really really mad, more mad than I shoulda been, and I accidentally yelled at him."

"What did you say?"

"I…um…"

"Do the kids need to cover their ears?"

"If they don't like the word pipsqueak…"

"_You called him a pipsqueak?_" both Macaws cried simultaneously. Jewel's feathers poked out a bit, Blu's mouth dropped open.

"It was a fit of anger! I really didn't mean it! And I haven't seen him since last night!"

"Well I should think not!" Jewel said indignantly.

"Jewel, it stormed last night, I'm really worried about him, and you can't _believe _how sorry I am—"

"What did he do to you?"

"He unplugged my game controller during a tournament! I lost and I just got mad!"

"You mean you lost because of him?" Blu asked. "Well that was _really _harsh on his part…"

"But you still shouldn't have called him a pipsqueak," Jewel said.

"I know! And I need to find him to apologize! And, well, make sure he's all right…"

"This _is_ déjà vu," Jewel muttered.

Pedro suddenly bristled. "Don't say that," he said, his voice gaining an edge sharper than a scythe. "I know this is my fault. I know this is the second time in barely a month that Nico might be in danger because of me. I don't need you to remind me. I just need to know where he is."

Jewel's expression softened, not hardened, at the anger in Pedro's tone. "You really are worried."

Pedro didn't reply. He didn't need to.

Blu cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence. "We went on a walk a little while ago. The kids are getting good at flying, but as a result, their walking is starting to suffer, and as I've proved," Blu said while glancing at Jewel and slightly ruffling his feathers, "walking is just as important as flying." Pedro's desperate look cut Blu's long-winded explanation short. "So no, we haven't seen him. We were actually on our way to The Branch, the kids have been bugging us to hear your song again, and nothing bad happened last time, so we thought we'd take them."

Pedro put his head in his hands. "I keep forgetting we have to perform," he groaned.

"I bet he's there already, waiting for you," Jewel comforted, solace packed into her tone like feathers inside a pillow.

"I thought about it. I was heading there now to check. But I don't think he is."

"He can't be that mad."

"He can, and that's not even it," Pedro almost whined. "I've just got this feeling. And it's not a good one."

"I can tell," Jewel said drily. "Do you want us to help look for him? Again?"

Javier suddenly bounded over to his parents, followed by Abelina. She jumped on his back, tackling him to the ground.

"Get off me!"

"Nuh-uh! You're it!"

"I came to talk to the _adults, _little girl," he said self-importantly. Being born a week ahead of his siblings, an unusual time lapse for egg hatchings, gave him an air of superiority.

Abelina, born the day after Rey, scowled. Her mother cut her off before she could retaliate at her eldest brother.

"Javier, don't talk like that to your sister. What did you want with the _adults_?" Jewel added the same emphasis on the word as her son had, a sly smile breaking across her face.

"I wanted to know what you guys were talking about."

"You kids haven't seen your Uncle Nico, have you?" Pedro asked, hope daring to make an appearance in his otherwise flat tone.

"Just a minute ago," Javier said casually.

"What?"

"He flew by. I called to him, but he didn't hear me. He went that way." Javier pointed south, near the end of the beach.

"Are you sure?" Pedro almost didn't believe the small boy.

Javier scoffed. "Rey saw him too."

"Yeah," Rey piped. "I called to him first, but Javier said I didn't shout loudly enough. So then _he_ shouted and it _still_ wasn't loud enough." Rey shot a glance, somewhat smug, at his brother.

"Why didn't we hear this?" Blu asked.

"We were racing to the other end of the sidewalk."

"You mean like you're _not supposed to?_" Jewel growled.

"We were only out of earshot for a little bit…"

Jewel rolled her eyes and shared a parental glance with Blu—both had agreed only this morning that Javier had too much Jewel in him for his own good. Javier, knowing his parents were talking about him without saying a word, frowned.

Pedro looked down towards the south end of the beach, inspecting the flying specks filling the sky. None had the familiar shape and size of his best friend. If he still wanted to _be_ his best friend.

"You said this was only a minute ago?" he asked.

"Yeah. You can probably still catch him," Javier said, still looking disapprovingly at his parents.

Pedro took off, craning his neck backwards so he could still yell at Blu and Jewel. "You guys go to The Branch, tell Miguel we're not going to be able to perform tonight! And if you see Raf tell him where we are! He knows what's going on!"

Jewel and Blu waved affirmatives, and Pedro disappeared faster than a rocket leaving Earth's atmosphere.

* * *

><p>Nico flew over the beach; the sheer volume of the crowd gathered there the only thing distracting him from drowning in his own thoughts. He cocked his head, wondering why so many people had chosen tonight to come to the beach. Fully dressed.<p>

He slowed down to a glide, glancing around at the numerous people setting up lawn chairs and opening coolers. What was going _on? _He stopped, hovering in mid-air, in order to stare at the festivities. Well, as long as he wasn't choking himself with loathing and sadness, he might as well make a game plan instead of just moping about one.

Although part of him wanted to fly across the ocean to whatever distant lands awaited him there, his instincts told him that just setting out over the ocean was an extremely bad plan. Land would be much better. But should he go north or south? Stay in Brazil or go somewhere exotic, like Portugal or Jamaica? Maybe he should at least stay in Brazil. He was leaving his hometown; at least staying in the land of his upbringing would be some comfort.

"Nico!"

The call was quiet, so distant Nico brushed his ear thinking some annoying miniscule insect had buzzed too close to his head. Silence followed, and he didn't think anything of it for a few seconds as he tried to think of where to go. Maybe the library would have a map…

"Nico!"

The call was louder this time, loud enough that Nico questioned if he was hearing things. He gave it a few more seconds.

"_Nico!_"

But that sounded like…

"Are you hungry?"

Nico shook his head. Now the sounds of the past and present were mixing.

"NICO!"

This call was so loud that Nico knew he had not imagined it. It sounded both like the shouter was closer and like he had given his voice some volume.

"NICO!"

He turned around, fearing the possibility of insanity, but saw Pedro flapping intensely towards him, growing closer by the millisecond.

Nico didn't know whether to sigh with relief or groan at the awkward situation presenting itself. Why was Pedro coming towards him, and so fast? Only two possible explanations: He wanted to be friends, or he wanted to tell Nico in person that he never wanted to talk to him again.

It was probably the latter.

Nico couldn't bear to hear Pedro say those words. He turned back around, and started flying just as intensely as Pedro, towards land.

* * *

><p>"NICO!" Pedro called again. He knew his friend had heard him, he had turned around, there was no way Nico had missed seeing the frenzied cardinal.<p>

But then why had he looked frightened? Was Nico afraid that Pedro was still angry? Or maybe he just didn't want to talk to him.

It was probably the latter.

But that didn't matter. Pedro had to catch up to him; he had to apologize, even if Nico didn't want to hear it. Quite honestly, Pedro didn't blame his friend for not wanting to see him. But he had to at least try to make things right.

"_NICO!_"

Nico just sped up. For the first time since arriving, Pedro's eyes left the canary, and he glanced down towards the beach.

Why was it so busy? Even the boardwalk behind it was teeming with people…

Pedro received his answer as a deafening explosion abruptly cracked in the sky. Colors swam before his eyes, their brightness nearly blinding him. He tried to brake, smacking the air with his wings. Through the haze of red mist hanging in front of his eyes, he saw Nico stop, having just missed being singed by a flare of glowing white.

Another raucous crack split the sky next to Pedro's ear, followed by a rocket of hot blue light that came dangerously close to burning his face off. The sudden explosion in front of him rocked his entire body, and he felt his wings giving way, the rush of wind at their sudden uselessness telling him he was falling even as he realized what all those people were at the beach for.

Fireworks.

* * *

><p>Jewel craned her neck above the crowd, scanning for Rafael. The large black toucan was normally not difficult to find amongst the brightly colored birds of Rio, but tonight, he was proving terribly elusive.<p>

"Javier! Get back here!" Blu cried, gesturing furiously to his son. Javier fluttered back to his father and siblings, the latter nearly hiding under the former's wing. "Run off like that again, and we're going home."

"But Papa, I was only a few inches away…"

"I don't care. Coming here is a privilege, if you misbehave, you lose that privilege. For everyone."

"But Papa…"

"Don't ruin it," Rey hissed.

"I like it here," Abelina agreed. "I don't wanna go home."

"I _wasn't_…"

Blu rolled his eyes. The three kids argued more with each passing day. Jewel claimed it was because they were growing up, Blu claimed it was because they were determined to make their lives as difficult as possible. Eyes never leaving his children, specifically Javier, Blu asked his mate, "Find him yet?"

"Ugh, no." Jewel sounded exasperated. "He's always near the front of The Branch, I don't know why he's making it so hard for us to find him _now_."

"Find who now?"

Blu yelped at Rafael's sudden interruption, eliciting laughter from his children. He glared at them, but unlike Jewel, he failed to strike fear. In anyone, really.

"You," Jewel told Rafael happily.

Rafael opened his mouth to ask why, but at that moment noticed the Blue Macaw children—mostly because they were shouting "Uncle Raffy!" and jumping up and down, each filled to the brim with excitement of the purest form.

"Hey, kids!" Rafael laughed as they jumped over him. "Your parents decided to bring you here again, huh?"

"Nothing happened the first time," Blu explained. "And they were good the last three days. Kinda."

"Why weren't you at the front?" Jewel asked. "You're always at the front."

"I was showing Richie around," Rafael said. The Blue Macaws suddenly noticed a yellow parakeet standing a little ways away, staring transfixed at the lights, birds, and boxes that made up The Branch. He looked like a hapless college freshman about to pledge to the most exclusive fraternity on campus.

"Guys, this is Richie," Rafael continued, gently pulling the parakeet towards the group. "He lives above a video store with his owner. This is the first time he's been to The Branch."

"Hi, Richie!" the kids chorused. Their parents smiled at the younglings' perfect picture of politeness as they each extended a wing, introducing themselves.

"So you're a pet, huh?" Blu asked.

"Yeah," Richie replied sheepishly.

"I used to be a pet."

"Really?" Richie visibly relaxed.

"You bet. Still am, kind of, I guess. She operates the Blu Bird Sanctuary near the rainforest."

"Awesome!"

"It is."

"So you're the one who's been hanging around with Nico and Pedro, right?" Jewel asked. "What exactly happened? I've never seen them fight before."

"They're still fighting?" Rafael broke in. "Unbelievable, I told them each to meet here tonight to apologize. Nico is being a little drama queen. And Pedro's not much better."

"Pedro was a wreck when we saw him on our way here," Blu said.

Upon seeing Rafael's puzzled expression, Jewel explained, "He asked us if we'd seen Nico anywhere. The kids had only a second ago, so Pedro followed him. He's really worried about him."

Rafael nodded. "Disregarding The Best of the Branch, I've never seen him like this. And, I hate to admit it, Pedro kind of has the right to worry."

"What do you mean?"

"Nico wants to leave Rio."

"_What?_" The cry came from all six birds surrounding Rafael.

"Yup. He's got this crazy notion that Pedro will never forgive him, which is funny, because Pedro's got this crazy notion that Nico will never forgive _him_." Rafael shook his head. "All we have to do is get them together, but Nico's being ridiculous. I told him to be here tonight, too," he muttered as an angry afterthought.

"To Pedro's credit, he said he was on his way here," Blu said. "But then he went after Nico."

"It's a good thing the kids saw him," Jewel said with minor relief. "Pedro wasn't far behind."

"That's the best news I've heard all day," Rafael agreed.

By this point, the birds had reached almost the middle of the crowd, having slowly but steadily forged their way through during the conversation.

"So what happens about the performance, then?" Jewel asked. "Pedro told us to tell you what was going on."

"I'll handle it," Rafael said. "You guys just wait here a bit."

Rafael left, calling for Miguel. The rambunctious crowd, many of them dancing to the song currently being performed by a blue parrot, fueled the kids' excitement with their own. Each hopped desperately up and down, scrambling over their parents in an effort to see everything there was to see.

"How are you liking your first visit to The Branch?" Jewel asked Richie, gently pushing Javier away with her foot. The chick struggled against his mother, taking it upon himself as a personal challenge to clamber over her restraints.

"It's not bad," Richie replied, although he still looked nervous. "I mean, it's kind of…busy…"

"Health Code violations, right?" Blu said.

"So many."

Blu turned to Jewel as the parrot finished his song. "I like this guy."

"HA! You _do _sound like Mark Zuckerberg!"

"Huh?"

"Now that the music's stopped, it's _crazy _how much you sound like him!" Richie said excitedly. "Or, rather, Jesse Eisenberg, I suppose."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's this mo—"

"Mama, what's that?" Rey asked, pointing towards the entrance to The Branch. His observation attracted the attention of his siblings and the adults.

A dark shape hung off the eaves of a bordering building. Skulking through the shadows the roofing afforded, it moved quickly from the entrance to the middle of the arena.

"I don't know," Jewel said. She instinctually gathered Rey closer, reaching out for Javier and Abelina.

"There's another one!" Abelina cried. The adults followed her finger, and saw another shadowy figure moving through the darkness on the building opposite the first.

Abelina did not have time to cry out again when a third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth, followed by a sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, too many to count, rushed the entrance to The Branch.

The audience gasped. The two flamingos who had been preparing to perform stopped hitting the tin cans that served as drums. As soon as ominous silence pervaded, the shapes left the cover of darkness, and suddenly monkeys were swarming through the alley, shrieking and yelling.

Blu, Jewel, their children, and Richie barely had time to register what was going on before Rafael's shout broke through the mayhem:

"BIRDS VS. MONKEYS!"

* * *

><p>As always...reviews are requested and appreciated. :)<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

I just want to let everyone know that this was one of my favorite chapters of any fanfiction I've ever had to write. This is why it is up so quickly-I wrote, and by wrote I really mean re-wrote, for like 48 hours straight. It has gone through many many many changes in a short period of time, and I felt that I had to let it go before this chapter made me insane.

Also adding to my steadily building insanity, I started a book this morning in which a character is named Nico, and it just so happened to take place in Venice, during their Carnevale celebration. Yeah. Goodbye, 50-year-old gondolier the book describes, and hello to hilarious images of a tiny canary trying to navigate a gondola and hanging out with a Venetian courtesan. (It's a great book, by the way.)

But I digress. My point is: Enjoy.

* * *

><p>Another searing blaze of light zoomed past Pedro, just missing the back of his neck. His feathers prickled with heat, an unnecessary reminder of the danger exploding all around him. Each collision of the glimmers of red, blue, white, green, and yellow clashed in a louder explosion than before, shaking the sky and rendering Pedro's wings even more useless. The sight, a gorgeous cacophony of colors to the mesmerized audience on the beach below, served as a prison of unnatural thunder and lightning from which Pedro could not escape.<p>

He could not process what was happening. The light and sound were too much. He was too singed, too shocked, too scared, to do anything but stare at the battlefield in the sky above him; where rocketing lights assaulted each other for supremacy, each glare of color achieving victory for only a second before the remnants of the explosion trickled down the surface of the sky in festive, firey designs that stained the black horizon.

He tried in vain to move his wings, but the close explosion from a second ago had rocked his entire body, a speeding arrow comprised entirely of rumbling sound that so shook him he could not force his limbs to move. He was falling at an alarming speed, picking up velocity as he moved closer and closer to the water. He knew he would not be able to swim when he hit it.

A sudden dart of yellow flew alarmingly close to Pedro's side, and he flinched instinctually. But when it touched him, it felt remarkably unlike the blaze of fire he had been expecting.

"PEDRO! FLY!" It screamed. Pedro realized the darting yellow was Nico—the canary grasped Pedro's useless wing, pulling with every iota of strength in his little canary body to force his friend to move. "PEDRO!"

Pedro finally shook his head, realizing that Nico had dived down through almost twenty feet of blasting fireworks to rescue his semi-unconscious friend.

Nico continued pulling, managing to suppress the speed of the fall. Pedro shook his head again, desperately trying to shake the ringing out of his ears.

"WHY WON'T YOU MOVE?" Nico cried, the edge in his voice nearly breaking. He kicked the air furiously, hoping his leg movements would effectively replace the flapping of wings in order to stay aloft. Although his hold on Pedro was stalling the fall, the little canary had to use both wings to maintain it, and he desperately needed to use those to fly.

Pedro tried to move his wing, shaking Nico off. "I'M TRYING!"

Nico exhaled in relief as Pedro's senses were restored, though it cost his tired body priceless oxygen. Pedro managed to fly adequately after a moment of shaking out his limbs, but their momentary stillness made the two birds easy prey for another colored flare.

The shot of red light fired almost vertically from somewhere on the shore. Both Nico and Pedro saw it at the same time, shooting at an insane speed directly towards them. Nico dove to the left and Pedro to the right, both nearly flipping over in their haste to move from the path of destruction. The flare zipped in between them, singeing the both of them but otherwise leaving them unharmed.

At least, physically—Nico shuddered at the thought of what would happen if a flare _did _hit one of them, and Pedro still looked out of it.

They grinned at each other across the space they had just vacated, each trying to catch their breath while flapping their wings. Mentally, they were exhausted after only about a minute of trying to survive the fireworks. Unfortunately, fireworks usually lasted for more than a minute. Their eyes met.

Pedro looked almost ready to cry. "Nico, I'm sorry, I'm so so so sorry…" He paused, mouth open, unable to find his voice. A moment later, he croaked out, "Please accept my apology?"

Nico did not have time to respond before the sky thundered, yet again, around them.

The explosion resounded loudly, shaking the sky like a child holding a rattle. Colors mixed and swam before Nico's eyes, everything seemed to be moving but him, he couldn't see clearly—

A red and gray blur was also moving in front of him, dancing between more red and blue—no, not dancing, flying, struggling to stay aloft—

Pedro's vision, as equally distorted as Nico's, threw yellow shapes and blue and red darts across his field of sight, and his body still hadn't fully recovered from the earlier shock. Nausea settled in, or rather attacked, Pedro's stomach.

Nico hadn't answered—if only all the lights would stop—

Moments later, everything turned black.

* * *

><p>"PEDRO!"<p>

Nononononononono, this could not be happening, Nico had never apologized, he had never told Pedro he accepted the apology—

Pedro's limp form was falling through the sky, again; apparently the cardinal was not quite as adept as Nico at navigating a fire-ridden sky. Milliseconds ticked by, each of them leaving Nico with less and less of an idea of what to do, and more and more panic teeming to the surface.

Nico was about to dive down for his unconscious friend, no matter what little he could do, when a collision of more lights above him yielded yet another explosion. He looked up to see the fireworks forming a star whose five points reached far into the dark sky. One of those points stretched farther than the others, almost shooting off the star in a rapidly speeding rocket of impalement. That was the one pointing down.

The one pointing at Pedro.

Nico gulped. There was nothing else he could do.

* * *

><p>Pedro warily opened his eyes, vaguely aware that he was falling. It took only a millisecond for him to remember the situation, and only another millisecond to realize that his wings were, once again, useless.<p>

He saw Nico flying above him, away from him. The canary got further and further away as Pedro continued to fall, and Pedro realized that…Nico was leaving. He had not accepted his apology.

His best friend was abandoning him.

Fresh tears, a combination of despondent realizations and physical pain, stabbed his eyes. But not before they could see the shooting flare of red firing directly at him.

So this was it. He was leaving the world without a best friend—

Before he could finish his mental epitaph, a yellow shape flew across his swarmed vision, blocking the red light—it had stopped between Pedro and the firing glare.

He suddenly recognized the yellow shape as a small canary wearing a bottle cap. The sight hit Pedro harder than a boxer striking a punching bag—it was in between him and the firework.

Nico was in between him and the firework.

He had time to dodge—but he wasn't flying away.

Nico wasn't flying away.

Realization hit Pedro at the same time the flame collided with Nico. It was a dead-on hit. The canary instantly went limp, his tiny form launched out of the sky by the glowing crash, bottle cap propelled off his head by the sheer force.

"_NOOOO!" _The scream erupted from Pedro's mouth, flowing out like lava from an emotional volcano. Feeling instantly returned to his body, urgency coursing through his limbs at the same speed as his rushing blood. A violent flap of his wings halted his fall, and another catapulted him back upwards, where an unconscious canary streaked through the sky.

Pedro reached for his self-sacrificing friend, wishing his arm would stretch farther. He _had _to reach Nico before he hit the water, there was no way Pedro would be able to find Nico's sinking form in the inky black of the ocean—they would both drown—

Suddenly at least twenty different flares of fireworks shot up from the ground, penetrating the sky in one last give-it-everything explosive finale that elicited cries of wonder from the beachgoers. The sheer force of the combined number of explosions, all going off one after another, sent shock waves through the air, knocking Nico out of his downward spiral and into Pedro's reaching arms.

Pedro did not have time to whoop for joy before a combination of Nico slamming into him and the explosive shock waves vibrating the air sent him reeling backwards, over the ocean, the shoreline, the beach, and into a nearby tree.

He managed to cover Nico as he tumbled through the leaves and branches, shielding his still unconscious friend from the worst of the lacerations trying to poke, scratch, stab him. He felt himself slowing down as he bounced from branch to branch, until he finally slammed into the ground—luckily, an unusually soft patch of grass.

Pedro took only a moment to catch his breath, staring at the lights he could still see through the damaged foliage above, before rolling to the side and dropping Nico onto the grass next to him. "Nico, can you hear me?" he asked, voice panicked as he inspected the canary's state.

Nico was not bright yellow anymore. His previously vivid color was now singed, almost dull, decorated by splotches of black and burnt feathers. His chest and stomach, the target of the flaming firework, had taken the brunt of the damage—beneath the burns, Pedro could see a gigantic bruise forming.

"Nico? Nico?" Pedro struggled to prevent a tear from dropping down his cheek at his friend's lack of response. "Nico, please wake up!" He shook the canary gently, trying to stir whatever remnants of life remained within him. "NICO!"

A minute passed. Then another. And another. Nico remained still on the forest floor.

"Nico…Nico, no…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…_please_ no…"

Pedro's sorrowful plea gradually descended into nothing more than quiet whimpers. He heard the leaves above him rustle. Still holding Nico's shoulder, the cardinal looked up to see a metal bottle cap come falling through the foliage. Pedro didn't react in time—it struck Nico on the head.

The canary suddenly lurched forward, as if the bottle cap had hit a start button. He coughed violently, the forceful coughs wracking his entire body. Nico didn't have time to catch his breath before Pedro had drawn him into a fierce hug.

"Pedro…?" Nico's voice came out hoarse and slightly muffled by the cardinal's feathers.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"I accept your apology."

Pedro was silent for a moment. Then, all of a sudden, he started laughing.

The laughter was contagious. Nico, still in Pedro's heavy embrace, began laughing as well, though his laughter was punctuated by the raspy quality of his tired voice.

Pedro managed to break a coherent sentence through his laughter. "All I had to do was _hit _you to get you to wake up?"

"That was purely _awesome._ Firework Flying should be a _sport._"

"You wouldn't be very good at it. Can't even dodge a flare comin' straight at ya…"

Nico laughed, then coughed again. Pedro released him, giving the canary space to breathe.

"I'm sorry," Nico croaked.

"For throwing yourself into the path of what might as well have been a _rocket_?"

"No, for the prank, it was stupid—"

Pedro drew his friend in for another hug. "I accept your apology."

"I'm really sorry, Pedro—"

"I said I accept your apology."

The two friends sat in compatible silence for a moment, broken only by Nico's coughing. Pedro gently hit the canary's back.

"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly. Nico coughed again—his voice had not improved much since waking up.

"Kinda hurts to breathe," he admitted, pointing at his bruised chest. "Just give it a little while. I'll be singing in no time."

Pedro's eyes widened. "Aw, man, we're supposed to be performing right now!"

Nico groaned, collapsing onto his back. "I was supposed to meet Ralfy at The Branch."

"Did he threaten you, too?"

"He said he'd hunt me down if I didn't show up."

"Same here. What do you think the chances are of getting murdered if we go now?"

"Better than if we _don't _go. Man, we just survived _fireworks,_ and we're afraid of dying by Rafael."

Pedro snorted. "Hey, we might get lucky. Maybe some monkeys utterly destroyed The Branch and got to him first."

* * *

><p>Pedro had no way of knowing that his hypothetical situation was completely true.<p>

* * *

><p>Yes, I realize that if a firework hit a bird straight-on, it would proooooobably die. But for the moment, I am altering the world of physics to my own purposes.<p>

Tell me what you think...?


	8. Chapter 8

Hello! I have no notes. Just enjoy.

* * *

><p>The Branch was a mess.<p>

Stray fruit littered the ground. A turntable lay in the corner, destroyed but for one record still spinning feebly. Crates that had been artfully arranged to provide optimal seating were now stacked haphazardly in random locations, effectively blocking any and all points of exit. Worst of all, the main stage was in ruins.

The tin can drum set had been dismantled. One of the speakers was emitting a constant droning noise, as if wailing for the loss of its top half. A strobe light, hanging dangerously by a damaged thread valiantly trying to pass as a cord, flickered on and off, casting unearthly hues on the pavement below. The sickly light did nothing to help the spirits of the birds it illuminated—like everything else in the alley, they were broken.

One monkey, amidst the many that crowded The Branch, stood atop an overturned crate positioned in the middle of the festivities. One of the towers of broken crates loomed behind him, a backdrop of intimidating destruction, as he smugly absorbed the view before him. The satisfaction at seeing the devastation in the alley was topped only by the satisfaction of seeing the devastation in the faces of the birds.

"Marmosets, birds, Brazilians, lend me your ear," he began, holding his arms behind his back and rocking back and forth on his feet. "What was once known to you as The Branch will now and forever more be known as The Banana Tree."

More than a few birds in the audience rolled their eyes, causing the living fence of marmosets surrounding them to move in even closer. The already crowded corral of captured birds became even more cramped as the monkeys pushed them closer and closer together, effectively removing any elbow space they previously had.

Mauro harrumphed at their obvious distaste. "It's a better name than The Branch, that's for sure. I never understood why the name was so popular…"

"Because you didn't think of it."

Mauro turned, the easy humor from a moment before vanishing as his eyes met with the toucan behind him.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me," Rafael scoffed.

"You're already in deep water, Mr. King of Carnevale," the monkey snapped. He gestured towards the four marmosets poised behind Rafael, on the edge of the crate. "One false move and not only are _you _done for, but I snap my fingers and every other bird here is too." He turned back towards the throng of birds surrounded by his ready army of monkeys. Both groups had watched his threat with rapt attention. "And vice-versa. Any of you so much as _try _to get past my monkeys, your precious King of Carnevale is…how shall we say….disposed of?"

Rafael crossed his arms and glared at Mauro, though the monkey's back was turned. Although his hostage situation made him feel slightly (no, really) humiliated, he knew he could take Mauro _and _the four guard monkeys behind him, if he only got the chance—but unfortunately for the fierce anger burning inside him, Rafael was smart enough to know that they were vastly outnumbered. Somehow the monkeys' ranks had grown from the last attack; perhaps they'd sent out for help from relatives, their communication had become extremely efficient since they'd started pilfering cell phones. Either way, Rafael knew it was next to hopeless, as the hour-long fight leaving the birds battered, bruised, and beaten down had just proved.

Rafael's most stirring cause for hesitation stared him straight in the face from the middle of the crowd—six birds, one yellow, five blue. What a night for Rafael to introduce Richie, the sheltered introvert, to the glories of The Branch, and what a night for Blu and Jewel to bring their kids. He sighed inwardly, praying for some sort of miracle—monkeys taking over The Branch held more consequences than anyone would ever think.

Rafael found himself scanning the crowd for a flash of yellow and a burst of red. He panicked when he couldn't locate the familiar faces of the canary and cardinal, thoughts of them as casualties (of which they'd had none, _Gracas a Deus_), barraging his mind. Then he remembered, with a bittersweet inflection, that they had forfeited The Branch that night.

Had Pedro caught up to Nico before the stupid little drama queen left Rio? If they had, would they come to The Branch…? Rafael hoped yes and no, respectively. The one good thing Rafael could dwell on at this point was that the two birds had inadvertently escaped the most threatening monkey invasion to date. Granted, Nico and Pedro were fairly handy in a fight, and they would have fought valiantly for the sanctity of The Branch…

Rafael inwardly sighed again. Whether Nico and Pedro's absence was a blessing or a nuisance, he didn't know.

* * *

><p>"Well I didn't mean it <em>literally<em>," Pedro whispered fervently in response to Nico's glare. "How was I supposed to know monkeys had _actually taken over_ The Branch?"

"This has never happened before!" Nico said, voice also a frazzled whisper. "Look at how many of them there are! They must want our club more than we thought!"

"They've wanted it since that day they were hunting down Blu and Jewel for Nigel." Pedro frowned, scanning the crowd of birds below for the telltale blue feathers of their friends. "Remind me to kill them later for leading the monkeys to our club. Before that, they had no idea where it was."

Nico pulled Pedro back just as a monkey looked over in their direction. "Talk quieter," he hissed. "We don't have a very good hiding place." The crate they crouched behind hid them well enough, but if they wanted to get a good view of the situation, they had to peer around the corner—meaning that if they wanted to see the monkeys, the monkeys would be able to see them, too.

"They've got Ralfy, man!" Pedro strained to keep his voice to a whisper. "Like, behind that Mauro guy in the middle!"

Nico forced himself to stay behind the protective covering of the crate. "What? Did you see the others?"

"Yeah, Blu and Jewel are in the middle, with the kids."

"_They brought the kids?_"

"Yeah. And Richie's there too."

"What else could possibly go wrong?"

"I think they're using Ralfy as leverage."

"Of course."

"There are a lot of monkeys, and they've got everyone kinda horded in the middle, but I think Ralfy's the only reason everyone stopped fighting," Pedro surmised.

Nico succumbed to the need to see the situation for himself and peered around the edge. His eyes instantly landed on the vibrant mix of blue and yellow feathers in the thick of the crowd—Blu stood in the middle of Richie and Jewel, holding Abelina. Rey had squeezed between his parents, burying his face in his father's feathers. Jewel had a wing draped over Javier, silently restraining him from going anywhere. Not that he could; the birds were so closely packed it reminded Nico of the cages in the back of the bird smugglers' plane.

Nico retreated back to their hiding place. "Okay, um….um…."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know! There are a whole lot of them, and…and…" The canary's voice lowered to a still quiet, making his previous whispers sound like shouts. "Pedro, do you know what will happen if they take over?"

"I got an idea."

"We won't have our club anymore. We won't be able to perform. We won't even be able to go downtown! I mean, monkeys and birds have never been friendly, but it was just a few isolated fights, and that one huge one when Blu and Jewel came to town. If they move their base from the forest to here…"

Pedro grimaced. "We're doomed."

"What do we do?" Nico grabbed Pedro's front feathers, shaking his friend desperately for an answer. "I don't know what to do!"

Pedro froze with surprise at Nico's frazzled desperation, staring blankly at the hyperventilating canary for lack of a better response. He snapped out of it when Nico suddenly swooned, legs buckling beneath his tiny frame. Pedro's hand shot out to catch his friend. Holding Nico above the ground by the arm, he suggested, "Why don't you sit down?"

Nico obeyed, plopping onto the ground and leaning against the back of the crate. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" Pedro asked.

Nico nodded. "Just lost my cool for a second there. " He frowned. "I've lost it a lot lately."

"What about, like, physically?" Pedro eyed the canary's bruised, heaving chest. "You don't look good, buddy." Nico's haggard look went far beyond exhaustion—Pedro suspected that the canary's flight here had been much more difficult than Nico let on, and could tell the canary was burnt both on the outside and inside.

"I'm fine," Nico replied tartly. "Just…tired."

"Are ya sure?"

"Positive."

Pedro plopped down next to his friend. Nico grinned.

"What are you grinning about?"

"I was just thinking that it's too bad we're not on the water. Maybe the monkeys are as scared of sharks as you."

"And maybe they're as paranoid about losing things as you are." Pedro flicked his friend's bottle cap, hitting it off center and issuing a metallic clang.

Nico laughed, managing to go for almost three whole seconds without coughing. "Man, why can't we just prank 'em…we're good at that…"

Pedro audibly inhaled, a sharp intake of breath that halted Nico's laughter. "Nico…I just got an idea."

* * *

><p>"…and then we'll decorate The Branch—er, The Banana Tree—with some of the priceless treasures we've been saving for just such an occasion," Mauro drawled pleasantly. If he noticed the chagrined and rather bored expressions of his captive audience, he didn't acknowledge the antipathy. "And then once our club is established, we'll provide the limitations for your range."<p>

"Range?" This was what Rafael had been afraid of.

"Yes, range," Mauro said, turning around and glaring at the interruption. "You stupid birds have always just flown around the city and the beach and the trolley lines all willy-nilly, while we've stayed to the shadows. There are no signs about not feeding the _birds, _there are no signs warning tourists against _birds. _You've enjoyed too much freedom."

"That doesn't make any—"

"Starting _now, _you'll stay to the rainforest, your natural habitat."

"That's your natural habitat too!"

"Not anymore. Now we belong to the streets. Or rather, the streets belong to us."

Rafael stared angrily at Mauro, who stared angrily back. Contempt and menace shone equally in both faces.

There was no way around it. The thieving monkeys had just added Rio to their collection of stolen treasures.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure about this, Pedro?"<p>

"Totally, bro! We got this." The cardinal's eyes glinted with determined revenge as he rubbed his hands together. "There ain't no possible way this can go wrong."

Nico eyed the sloping path leading from the top of the hill. The path was a straight shot to the club, although from up here, it looked like a straight shot to nothing—the curtains that had been draped over the outer abandoned market stalls easily fooled humans into thinking the bottom of the hill held nothing but splintered wood and rotten fruit. Only the birds of Rio knew that beneath the dejected surface lay the best samba club known to the human and avian populations of Brazil.

And now, so did the monkeys.

"Trust me, bro," Pedro pleaded from behind the still pensive canary.

Nico angled his bottle cap and assumed his position. "Let's go, bro. This'll be off the block."

* * *

><p>"…and then <em>maybe, <em>if you're all good little birdies and obey our new rules, you can come and stand in the back for karaoke night." Mauro looked extremely pleased with his suggestion, like a parent who had just bribed his child into behaving for the afternoon. He opened his mouth to elaborate, but the sound of wheels grating against pavement overshadowed his words.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Birds and monkeys alike heard the scream before they saw the source.

A skateboard rapidly whizzed towards The Branch, progressing in speed as it rushed further and further downhill. A canary was perched on front, holding the barrel of a squirt gun, while a red-chested cardinal stood braced in the middle, frantically pumping the trigger. Water shot out of the gun, a stream of considerable force arcing its way through the air before hitting Mauro.

The monkey toppled off his crate, and as soon as he fell, the canary started to move the barrel of the gun back and forth, spreading the liquid bullets through the alley and effectively hitting every monkey in sight.

The birds, upon taking a second to piece everything together, had just started to cheer when another shout erupted from the skateboard.

"PEDRO! GO SLOWER! I CAN'T AIM!" Nico yelled frantically, struggling to hold the barrel somewhat straight as the skateboard sped downhill, getting faster by the second. The speed was starting to shake the board so hard that it was fairly vibrating with velocity, bouncing the canary and the gun around on the nose.

"I CAN'T CONTROL THE SPEED!" Pedro yelled back, still pumping furiously.

"_WHAT?_"

"WELL HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO—"

Screams from monkeys and birds alike eclipsed the volume of Pedro's yell. The skateboard had finally reached the heart of the alley, and the birds, their legion of monkey guards having been disengaged by water gun, scrambled to avoid the board now traveling at lethal speed. Nico and Pedro zipped through the crowd, suddenly aware of a crate looming ahead of them.

"LEAN!" Nico yelled, running to the right side of the board. Pedro followed suit: they both leaned off the edge, tipping the skateboard dangerously to the right, turning it away from the obstacle a few inches away. The angle was steep, and the board turned sideways, scraping across the pavement for a second before colliding with the crate broadside. The crate shook, knocking the rest of the crates behind it—the towers had been poorly stacked, and they ricketed dangerously.

The skateboard had hit the crate so hard that it bounced off and careened back into the alley, jarring the riders off in the process. Nico and Pedro flipped in mid-air, somehow still managing to hold onto the water gun, and smashed against the side of the crate. Each still clutching their part of the gun, they slowly scraped down the side until they landed on the ground headfirst, staring at the proceedings upside-down.

"Why didn't we think of steering _before _we jumped on a skateboard going downhill?" Nico mused.

"I dunno," Pedro answered. Both birds were clearly dazed from their misadventure.

Their daze couldn't last long, however: An entire army of wet monkeys stood up in front of them, shook off their fur, and fixed their menacing eyes on the duo leaning upside-down against the crate in the middle of the alley. Mauro had a particularly wicked gleam in his eye, and at his motion, they started to advance.

Nico quickly shifted the barrel of the gun so that it aimed directly at the oncoming horde of angry monkeys. "Pedro Pedro Pedro PEDRO _PEDRO_!"

Pedro didn't need Nico's frantic cries to stir him into action: he had already begun pumping. Jets of water hit some of the advancing marmosets, but most continued to move closer, and the empty gushing sound coming from the gun notified that it was running low on water.

Suddenly the skateboard flew in from the side, knocking the monkeys away from the two birds running out of ammo. Nico and Pedro glanced to their right (they were still upside-down) and saw Rafael, Blu, Jewel, Richie and the kids standing where the skateboard had been a second ago, looking extremely smug and newly determined.

A moment later, the birds of The Branch exploded into action. War cries undulated through the alley, their spirits of defense newly invigorated, as an avian-simian war erupted for the second time that night.

Rafael, Blu, Jewel, Richie, and the kids ran to the bottom of the crate, where Nico and Pedro were struggling to right themselves.

But Mauro got there first.

His murderous intent towards Nico and Pedro for ruining his glorious takeover was abundantly clear. Followed by ten other monkeys, he vengefully leaped at the two birds. Pedro dove to the left and Nico to the right just in time; Mauro slammed against the crate, one of his targets on either side. Nico and Pedro prepared to take off before the other monkeys could reach them, but a loud cracking noise made them look up instead.

Mauro's impact had been just enough to knock the crate into the towers surrounding it. Already loosened by the impact from the skateboard; they were thrown off balance even further. The towers collapsed simultaneously, wooden boxes bombarding Nico, Pedro, and the ten surrounding monkeys.

Wood splintered off the boxes, shooting in every direction. Nico and Pedro dove to the ground, covering their faces with their arms. Just out of range, their friends did the same in an effort to protect themselves from the random projectiles, Blu and Jewel turning their children back from the war zone.

The barrage ceased, and Nico and Pedro looked up carefully. At first, they breathed relief, but one final crate still lazily twisted above them atop the one Mauro had been using as a podium. Slowly, slowly, slowly, as if it couldn't decide whether it wanted to fall or not, it started to tilt towards the ground. And then it fell, opening side down.

Nico, Pedro, and the ten other monkeys caught in the immediate area barely had time to flinch before the crate slammed on top of them, rendering their world completely black.

Silence followed, uncharacteristically deafening when combined with the afflicted blindness. Hesitancy wavered in the air, neither the birds nor monkeys trapped beneath the crate sure of how or where to attack. Then, as depleted light streamed through the cracks between the wood, Mauro gained a surge of confidence—regardless of the blackening injuries Nico and Pedro had recently suffered, their vibrant yellow and red feathers were hard to miss, even in the dark.

Nico and Pedro scrambled backwards on instinct, but hit hard wood at their backs. Realizing they had little time to escape, they ducked, and Mauro hit the wall above their heads. Crawling to the opposite side of the wall yielded no results—despite the insufficient lighting, all the monkeys seemed determined to battle, and unfortunately for the two birds they were vastly outnumbered.

The dark space suddenly became a wrestling ring, an impromptu and inconciliatory cage match, one that wouldn't end until a clear victor emerged from what would likely be a pile of dead competitors.

One monkey pulled Nico roughly to the side while another tackled Pedro from behind. The canary kicked defiantly, struggling vehemently as more and more monkeys latched onto him. One of his kicks landed squarely on a monkey's jaw, and the would-be-assaulter was thrown back into three other monkeys behind him.

"HA!" Nico could not resist a triumphant laugh as his kick set off a domino effect of cascading monkeys. One of the monkeys hit had been the one attacking Pedro, and with his limbs suddenly available, the cardinal lashed out at another monkey coming towards him.

Nico wrested his arm free from the clutching monkey, who had become momentarily distracted by the failure of his comrades. He elbowed him in the chest, forcing the monkey to double over, gasping for air. The canary wasted no time in backhanding another monkey to the left of him, who had also made a valiant attempt at restraint.

Having freed himself, Nico leaped up and ran to Pedro, who had successfully deterred his own attacks. Neither of them could see in the dark, unlike the monkeys, and sounds of a blind scuffle still radiated from the surrounding area. They could, however, see one monkey, the one nursing his head after solidly hitting a wooden structure for the second time in about 15 seconds. Seeing the malice in his eyes, Nico and Pedro unconsciously backed up, hitting the wall on the other side.

The side of the crate behind them suddenly separated from the ground, pairs of black, yellow, blue, and various other colored wings straining to lift it. One of the black wings groped until it felt Pedro's leg, and one of the blue ones until its fingers closed around Nico's, and then both cardinal and canary were pulled roughly from the darkness, falling onto their stomachs and squeezing between the wood and the ground until they were outside the crate.

Nico and Pedro flipped onto their backs, blinking at the relatively bright light. Blu and Rafael stood over them, Blu still holding Nico's leg and Rafael still clutching Pedro's.

"We got 'em!" Rafael yelled in the vague direction of the crate. Five or six other birds, Richie and Jewel included, dropped the crate back down, trapping the monkeys inside. Javier, Rey, and Abelina fluttered to the top of the crate, weighing it down by hopping excitedly.

Rafael grinned and looked down at Nico and Pedro. His grin surrendered to puzzled scrutiny. "Did the monkeys do _all that _to you?"

"What? Oh, no—"

"Look, Mama! Look at us!"

"Yes, Abelina, good job," Jewel praised. She was about to join them when the other side of the crate suddenly lifted, spilling all three Blue Macaw chicks onto the ground. Blu and Jewel managed to catch Abelina and Javier, and Rey landed on Pedro.

They heard rather than saw the monkeys scrape their way out from under the crate. An angry shout, clearly Mauro's voice, accompanied the scuffling sounds: "_WHERE ARE THEY?"_

Knowing full well which two birds he meant, Pedro practically threw Rey to his parents and grabbed Nico by the arm. They took off before any of their surrounding friends could protest, flying nowhere in particular, just up, away from the monkeys.

Nico suddenly stopped, hovering in mid-air. "Hey, wait a minute. We don't need to run, you guys can't fly," he said, looking down at the monkeys glaring at them from the ground.

Pedro started laughing. "HA! YOU ALL CAN'T FLY! How does it feel to be stuck right there?" Ignoring Mauro's look of pure hatred, he continued to taunt. "TO THE GROUND!"

Nico stuck his tongue out. "My friend's insult didn't really make sense, but you get the picture."

"There's no way you're going to win this war," Mauro stated. "You might've disrupted my victory speech, but I _will _finish it."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Nico sung.

"Turn around," Pedro agreed.

Mauro turned, and saw, in a cruel twist of irony, all his monkeys corralled in by the birds of The Branch. Miguel the pelican held the water gun, which had been refilled with fruit juice, a much stickier and smellier ammunition than water. The birds surrounding him all either held the biggest pieces of fruit they could find or broken pieces of their sound equipment to be put to good use as weapons.

Mauro grimaced. The ranks of the monkeys still outnumbered those of the birds, but a lot of the marmosets lay unconscious on the ground, having been knocked out by the renewed vigor in the birds' fighting prowess. He could see the determination etched in the stance, posture, and expression of every bird there. It had been a gamble to win The Branch in the first place; Mauro knew full well that the only reason he'd succeeded earlier was the element of surprise. Otherwise, overcoming the birds' outstanding protective instincts devoted to their samba club was almost impossible.

And he had been so close.

Turning back towards Nico and Pedro, smiling smugly at their victory from the air, Mauro noticed that not all the monkeys had been caught in the corral. Very few had escaped, but one had climbed all the way to the top of one of the crate towers, clearly trying to dismantle it soundlessly in order to get out of The Branch. A very unsuccessful endeavor, sure, but his position was perfect—he and Mauro's eyes met, and Mauro glanced up at the strobe light. The other monkey understood immediately, and picked up a shard of glass, waving it desperately above his head in an effort to connect it with the already frayed cord preventing the light from falling.

"Fine. We'll leave," Mauro sneered at Nico and Pedro, now creating some sort of complicated fist bump maneuver.

"Be sure that you do," Nico commanded.

"And don't _ever _let us catch you 'round these parts again," Pedro said. Nico shot his friend a confused look, as if to ask "Why did you just speak in an American Western accent?", but Mauro's next words stopped him.

"Oh, I don't think that'll be a problem."

The sentence itself was not terribly frightening, but the double meaning imbibed in the words rendered the two birds momentarily still.

"I don't think I'll ever be seeing you two again." He smirked, and for a split second his eyes went to an area above Nico and Pedro. The two birds looked behind them, just as a sickening SNAP erupted from a cord supporting a broken strobe light.

The light completely disconnected from the building, falling at a heavy speed directly towards Nico and Pedro. Neither of them had time to move before the bulky light made impact.

* * *

><p>BAHAHAHAHA. I couldn't resist.<p>

Next chapter will be the last! So review while you still have the chance!


	9. Chapter 9

Well...here it is! The final chapter! I REALLY hope it's not anticlimactic...

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>The strobe light whipped through the air, slamming into Nico and Pedro before they had time to even consider moving. Luckily for them, the heavy metal light had fallen at an angle, and it did not make direct contact: instead, the left side grazed Nico while the right side hit Pedro, knocking both birds out of the air in opposite directions.<p>

The light continued its rushing fall until it finally reached ground level, where it solidly connected with the skateboard, propelling it into action once again. The board nimbly sped in a straight line, stopping only when it buffeted into a fruit cart. Pineapples and coconuts were jarred loose, tumbling onto the ground and rolling in a chaotic rush through the alley.

Pedro forced himself to sit up, trying desperately to breathe—the wind had been knocked clean out of him. A few stuttering gasps restored Pedro's normal breathing pattern, and as his vision cleared, he saw that Nico was lying on the opposite side of the alley, completely motionless.

Ignoring the potentially destructive fruit whirling through the alley, Pedro jumped up and raced over to his friend.

He practically slid into position next to the idle canary. Panic rose in Pedro's stomach when he saw that Nico's eyes were closed and his chest wasn't moving.

"Nico? _Nico?_" Pedro grasped his friend's shoulders and shook desperately.

Nico's eyes popped open, something akin to almost annoyance shining in his pupils. He weakly whacked Pedro on the arm before finally taking in a ragged breath.

"There—we go," he wheezed. "Calm—down."

"What do you mean _calm down_?"

"Wind—knocked—out of me." He took another deep breath. "I'm fine now."

"_Calm down?_"

"Yes, don't shake me like that, I'm trying to breathe!"

"_I'm going to kill you!"_

Nico laughed as Pedro shook him harder. The laughs turned into raspy coughs, although Nico barely seemed to care.

Nico and Pedro both became aware of the screaming behind them at the same moment. They turned around to see monkeys and birds alike running for cover from the surprisingly dangerous rolling fruit, which had broken the ring of birds guarding the monkeys. Miraculously, it hardly mattered that the birds were no longer in service—the fruit had tumbled in such a way that it had driven the monkeys back to the entrance of The Branch. They all clustered together with an air of uncertainty, obviously unsure of whether to leave unannounced with some shred of dignity, or wait for Mauro, standing in an equally unsure stance atop a crate, to give the order.

Nico and Pedro looked at each other, expressions betraying their surprise at the unexpected efficiency of rolling fruit.

"Let's pretend that was on purpose," Pedro whispered.

"Agreed." Nico smiled and hit his friend on the arm, pointing to a lone pineapple standing upright in the middle of the alley. Both birds ran to it, Pedro clambering up the right side and Nico up the left until they reached the top. Each grabbed part of the green stalk and hung off their respective side triumphantly. And, quite frankly, rather cockily.

"OI!" Pedro yelled.

Mauro, who had been looking at the entrance to the alley as if to make sure it was still there, almost physically jumped back in shock at seeing two birds who had just been hit by a strobe light standing perfectly unharmed atop a pineapple.

"Get. Out. Of. Here," Nico commanded, pointing at the exit. "Like we were saying before you so _rudely _interrupted us."

Mauro struggled to find words.

"Seriously, go away, or you're going to feel what it's like to get hit by a _strobe light_."

One glance at his surroundings told Mauro that he shouldn't mess with Nico's threat. Anger visibly radiated from the heads of all the birds in The Branch. If the monkeys had been doomed _before_ Mauro tried to kill its headliners by strobe light, they might as well just crawl into their graves now.

Without a word, Mauro motioned for his army to leave. It took merely a second for all the marmosets to evacuate the rather frightening atmosphere of the birds' reclaimed samba club, but Mauro stayed an extra moment, communicating his feelings through a glare of deathly proportions before disappearing himself.

A second of complete silence passed. A coconut rolled in front of the pineapple, much like a tumbleweed, before Nico spoke.

"That was _off the block_."

Pedro looked at his friend. Then he started laughing so hard he tumbled off the pineapple, landing on his back with his hands on his stomach.

Pedro's laughter ignited Nico's, and Nico also tumbled off, although he landed on his stomach as opposed to his back. His bottle cap drooped sideways off his head as he chuckled madly.

Avian cheers erupted through the alley, complimenting Nico and Pedro's laughter. They only enjoyed the symphony for about six seconds before a loud cry overshadowed everything else.

"_**WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO?"**_

Nico and Pedro immediately stopped laughing at the sight of an extremely angry Rafael standing imposingly in front of them, flanked by six equally peeved looking birds.

"_**FIRST**_, THE FIGHT, _**SECOND**_, YOU DON'T SHOW UP TONIGHT_, __**THIRD,**_ when you finally _**DO**_ show up you look like you just sailed through a _**TOASTER OVEN**_**,** _**AND THEN**_ you get hit by a _**LIGHT**_…"

"Well that wasn't our fault," Pedro protested, looking up at Rafael upside down.

"Well, the other things were, I guess…" Nico admitted, chin resting in his hands.

"**AND YOU**!" Rafael yelled, brandishing a finger centimeters from Nico's face. "Drama queen! Do you know how worried I was that you were going to _leave Rio?_"

"You were going to leave Rio?" Pedro asked.

"Well it's kind of an exaggeration, but…no it's not. I was going to leave Rio."

Pedro flipped over and kicked Nico in the side.

"OW!" the canary cried. "I'm sick of being _hit _by things today, man…you, a strobe light, a firework…"

"_What?_" Rafael sputtered.

"Oh yeah, Ralfy, we invented a new sport!"

"Nico's not very good at it."

"Apparently not."

"Did you say _firework?_"

"Yep."

Rafael stopped, looking both birds up and down. He sighed and offered a hand to each of them. "Great. Now I can't kill you because I have to hear this story."

* * *

><p>"And then everything went like FWOOSHBAAAAA," Pedro said, moving his arms in sync with the explosion sound effect. "And I almost fell!"<p>

"You _did _fall," Nico corrected.

"Correction: I did fall. But I saved myself."

"Because I practically pulled you up—"

"No, that was the _first _time, I'm talking about the second time."

"Oh…"

"Pay attention."

Their friends watched Nico and Pedro re-enact their adventure in the middle of the deserted Branch with a mixture of fascination, shock, and amusement. Javier, Rey, and Abelina sat upon their parent's laps, tired eyes wide with rapt attention. Blu, Jewel, and Richie looked mostly confused, but Rafael couldn't prevent horrified concern from invading his expression. "This happened _twice_?"

"Well, the first time I saved myself—" Pedro tried to explain.

"Liar," Nico broke in.

"And the second time I was _about _to—"

"Liar."

"When Nico here got hit by a firework."

"Liar."

"What? That's not a lie."

"Oh yeah, that did happen."

"_Were you not paying attention?" _Rafael nearly shouted, paternal instincts flowing to the surface.

"More than you think," Nico said, glancing at Pedro. The canary and the cardinal locked eyes and smiled, a secret hovering in the air between them.

This drove Rafael mad. "How are you _alive_?"

"Oh! Well then I caught him, right?" Pedro said excitedly, bringing it back to the action. "And then the sky was like KABLOOOOOOOOOOOSH because it was the finale and I swear the sky _rocked, _and I fell through all these trees and finally landed on the ground."

"Oh, is that how we got down there?" Nico asked.

"Yep."

"I was wondering that."

"Soon as he woke up we remembered we were supposed to perform. And then we high-tailed it to The Branch."

"Pedro jinxed us—"

"I did _not!_"

"He was all like 'If we're lucky maybe monkeys invaded The Branch and we can get out of Rafael being mad at us."

"Well don't TELL him that_—"_

"What made you think I wouldn't be mad?" Rafael asked. He fairly glowered at Nico and Pedro.

"Look what you've done!" Pedro glared at Nico, who chuckled in response. "Ralfy, I didn't say that, it was more like…um…"

"No, not about that. Well, that annoys me, but you two have _got _to stop almost dying. It's giving me gray feathers."

"I thought you had gray feathers from having, like, 100 kids?"

"I have 17."

"Right. 100 kids."

"Where are your other kids, Uncle Ralfy?" Rey asked, turning to the toucan quizzically.

"It's an exaggeration, Rey," Rafael replied. "Pedro's just being stupid. He's been through a lot today."

"Are you guys sure you're okay?" Jewel, and everyone else, had asked this at least nine times now in the course of half an hour.

"Yes," Nico flatlined.

"The light didn't hit us straight on," Pedro reminded everyone. He plopped down onto the ground, leaning against the crate in the middle of The Branch. "We're fine."

Nico sat down next to Pedro, also using the crate to his advantage. "Think the monkeys will be back?"

Rafael shrugged. "There's no guarantee. It's gonna take a while to clean this place up after that last attack, but Miguel was talking about taking some extra defensive measures so it doesn't happen again."

"Good." Pedro yawned. "We don't want to have to come save you guys on a regular basis." Nico laughed.

"This doesn't happen often, does it?" Richie asked, the first thing he'd said since the beginning of the monkeys' attack.

"Nah," Rafael assured him. "And it rarely happened before, either. It's only after these two—"—he gestured towards Blu and Jewel—"—came to town that the hatred between the groups intensified. They realized how totally sweet our club is. The rivalry will never end."

"Thanks, guys," Nico told Blu and Jewel drily.

Jewel scoffed. "I was always in town. It's after _he _came to town that it started."

Blu guffawed at Jewel's accusatory finger. "Is there a bus coming that you want to throw me under?"

"Wait, where are you from?" Richie asked.

"United States. Specifically, Minnesota."

"Aw, sweet! There's a player in the Super Smash Bros tourney every year from Minnesota. It's weird, he didn't enter this year, but he's good. He usually wins."

"What's the username?"

"TyeBloon."

"That's me."

"_What?_" The cry came from Rafael, Richie, Jewel, and the kids.

"You know, like typhoon. But with my names. Tyler and Blu. TyeBloon." Blu looked embarrassed at everyone's aghast expressions. "Well _I _thought it was clever."

"You play Super Smash Bros?" Rafael asked, speaking very slowly for clarification.

Blu rolled his eyes. "Yes. Yes I do. And very well, I might add. I suppose you think that's nerdy of me."

"Not as nerdy as _Tyler_," Jewel said, struggling not to laugh.

"Well now you know. Blu is my middle name."

"Dude, Super Smash Bros is awesome!" Rafael and Richie cried simultaneously.

Richie continued gushing. "I can't believe you're TyeBloon! You've won the tournament the last, like, six years! I'd been wondering why you hadn't entered this year."

"I still have yet to convince Linda to ship our Wii…" Blu frowned. "Somehow she doesn't think it's important enough for _priority _shipping."

"Aw, you've got to play with us sometime!" Richie was practically jumping up and down. "I can't wait to see you against _Pedro, _he's gonna be hard to beat, _that's _gonna be a match-up…"

Blu smirked. "Pedro, you're going _down_," he challenged as he turned to the cardinal. But Pedro didn't reply.

He lay slumped against the side of the crate, eyes closed and chest rising and falling peacefully. Nico had fallen from his upright position, and was now diagonally sprawled across the ground. His head rested on Pedro's stomach, going up and down with the cardinal's breaths.

"Awwwwwww," Jewel cooed. "They fell asleep."

"Should we wake them up?" Blu asked.

"Nah," Rafael replied. "Let them sleep."

"I guess that's the end of the fight."

They laughed softly. The cardinal and the canary took no notice, but continued dreaming tranquilly together against the crate in the middle of the alley.

* * *

><p>:) The end. Thank you to everyone who read it, and a special thanks to everyone who reviewed! Would you believe that Buddy Wars was meant to be a 3 chapter story tops? This stuff REALLY gets away from me...<p>

On that vein, there IS going to be a 3rd story: it shall be a trilogy! However, I only have about half that story planned out, so in between there will be a quick one-shot type thing, mostly to buy myself time. It's going to be called "Tubular". I'm going to go ahead and let everyone wonder what that's about.

Thank you all!

KhallieGurl


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